Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer 3110453479, 9783110453478

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Introduction • Lars Albinus
Presentation of the Text and the Matter
Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“. Verortung im Gesamtnachlass – Einbindung in die Philosophietradition – Editions- und Publikationsgeschichte • Josef G. F. Rothhaupt
Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E. Moore. Excerpt: Lecture 3b, May 5, 1933 and Lecture 4a, May 9, 1933 • David Stern, Brian Rogers, Gabriel Citron (Eds.)
Early Remarks (Background)
The Determinacy of Sense and Meaning. Some Notes on Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Considerations” (MS 110: 214) from the Early 1930s for the Background of His Philosophical Investigations • Wilhelm Krüger
The Faces of ‘Necessity’, Perspicuous Representation, and the Irreligious “Cult of the Useful”. The Spenglerian Background to the First Set of Remarks on Frazer • Mauro L. Engelmann
A Conception of Modern Life as “the Awakening of the Human Spirit, Revisited”. Wittgenstein’s Early Remarks on Frazer as a Philosophy of Culture • Steen Brock
Early Remarks (The Problem of Understanding)
It’s a Kind of Magic. Wittgenstein on Understanding and Weltanschauung in the Remarks on Frazer • Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen
Wittgenstein, Frazer, and Temperament • James C. Klagge
Explanation and Impression • Lars Madsen
Philosophy, Metaphysics and Religion. The “Remarks on Frazer” as Introduction to Wittgenstein’s “Second” Book • Andreas Koritensky
The Later Remarks
Thirteen Loose Sheets of Varying Size. On Part II of Bemerkungen über Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” • Peter K. Westergaard
„That they point, is all there is to it.“ Wittgenstein, Frazer, eine „Tatsachensammlung“ und ihre „übersichtliche Darstellung“ • Marco Brusotti
Wittgenstein, Frazer, and the Apples of Sodom • Lars Albinus
Ramifications of the Remarks
Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer. An Emotional Philosophical Puppet • Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Wittgenstein’s Critique of Frazer and Realism/Anti-realism Concerning Religion • Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell
Biographical Notes
Index

Citation preview

Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer

On Wittgenstein

Edited on behalf of the Internationale Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft e.V. by James Conant, Wolfgang Kienzler, Stefan Majetschak, Volker Munz, Josef G. F. Rothhaupt, David Stern and Wilhelm Vossenkuhl

Volume 3

Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer The Text and the Matter Edited by Lars Albinus, Josef G. F. Rothhaupt and Aidan Seery

ISBN 978-3-11-045347-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-045506-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-045372-0 ISSN 2365-9629 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Textbüro Vorderobermeier, Berlin Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Contents List of Abbreviations  1 Lars Albinus Introduction  3

Presentation of the Text and the Matter Josef G. F. Rothhaupt Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“. Verortung im Gesamtnachlass – Einbindung in die Philosophietradition – Editions- und Publikationsgeschichte  11 David Stern, Brian Rogers, Gabriel Citron (Eds.) Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E. Moore. Excerpt: Lecture 3b, May 5, 1933 and Lecture 4a, May 9, 1933  85

Early Remarks (Background) Wilhelm Krüger The Determinacy of Sense and Meaning. Some Notes on Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Considerations” (MS 110: 214) from the Early 1930s for the Background of His Philosophical Investigations  101 Mauro L. Engelmann The Faces of ‘Necessity’, Perspicuous Representation, and the Irreligious “Cult of the Useful”. The Spenglerian Background to the First Set of Remarks on Frazer  129 Steen Brock A Conception of Modern Life as “the Awakening of the Human Spirit, Revisited”. Wittgenstein’s Early Remarks on Frazer as a Philosophy of Culture  175

VI 

 Contents

Early Remarks (The Problem of Understanding) Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen It’s a Kind of Magic. Wittgenstein on Understanding and Weltanschauung in the Remarks on Frazer  207 James C. Klagge Wittgenstein, Frazer, and Temperament  233 Lars Madsen Explanation and Impression  249 Andreas Koritensky Philosophy, Metaphysics and Religion. The “Remarks on Frazer” as Introduction to Wittgenstein’s “Second” Book  269

The Later Remarks Peter K. Westergaard Thirteen Loose Sheets of Varying Size. On Part II of Bemerkungen über Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”  291 Marco Brusotti „That they point, is all there is to it.“ Wittgenstein, Frazer, eine „Tatsachensammlung“ und ihre „übersichtliche Darstellung“  311 Lars Albinus Wittgenstein, Frazer, and the Apples of Sodom  339

Ramifications of the Remarks Anders Klostergaard Petersen Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer. An Emotional Philosophical Puppet  369

Contents 

Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell Wittgenstein’s Critique of Frazer and Realism/Anti-realism Concerning Religion  403 Biographical Notes  421 Index  425

 VII

List of Abbreviations The classification of The Wittgenstein Papers was implemented by Georg Henrik von Wright. He ordered all the documents in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass in three categories: a) manuscripts (MS); b) typescripts (TS); c) dictations (D). And each single document has an extra number (i.e. MS 103; TS 203; D 303). See: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2010) Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, 3rd edition, Hackett. The following abbreviations have been used by the authors of this volume. Details on the editions the authors have used are given in the lists of references at the end of each chapter.

Abbreviations of Wittgenstein’s Works AWL BBB

Wittgenstein’s Cambridge Lectures 1932–35 Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”. Generally Known as The Blue and Brown Books

BEE

Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition

BT

The Big Typescript

CV

Culture and Value

D Dictation DB

Movements of Thought: Diaries, 1930–1932, 1936–1937

KB

Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch

LC

Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology & Religious Belief

LE

A Lecture on Ethics / Vortrag über Ethik

LSDPE

Lectures on Sense Date and Private Experience

LW

Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology

LWL

Wittgenstein’s Cambridge Lectures 1930–32

MS

Manuscript (in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass)

MWL

Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930–33 by G. E. Moore

NB

Notebooks 1914–1916

OC

On Certainty / Über Gewissheit

PI

Philosophical Investigations

PO

Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951

PPO

Public and Private Occasions

PR

Philosophical Remarks

PU

Philosophische Untersuchungen

RFGB

Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough / Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough

RFM

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics

RPP

Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology / Bemerkungen über Philosophie der Psychologie

SRLF

Some Remarks on Logical Form

2 

 List of Abbreviations

TLP

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

TNB

Taschennotizbuch / Pocket Notebook (in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass)

TS

Typescript (in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass)

VW

Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle

WA

Wiener Ausgabe

WC

Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Letters and Documents, 1911–1951

WVC

Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle

WWK

Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis

Z

Zettel

Abbreviations of Works by Other Authors Aristotle EN

Ethica Nicomachea

Maurice O’Connor Drury CW

Conversations with Wittgenstein

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe WAG

Goethes Werke. Sophien- oder Weimarer Ausgabe

James George Frazer GB FGB

The Golden Bough The Golden Bough, unabridged 3rd edition

Sigmund Freud SE

The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud

Bertrand Russell PoP TK ONC

Problems of Philosophy Theory of Knowledge On the Notion of Cause

Oswald Spengler DW

The Decline of the West, vols. I and II

Lars Albinus

Introduction On 4 and 5 April 2013, a group of scholars gathered together at the University of Aarhus (Denmark) to discuss Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough (RFGB). It had come to my and Lars Madsen’s (cf. this volume) knowledge that several Danish scholars were working independently, yet almost simultaneously, on a shared topic, namely how to appreciate fully the philosophical implications of Wittgenstein’s scattered and rather coarse opposition to Frazer’s anthropological view of magic. The question which intrigued us was to assess if, or to what degree, Wittgenstein’s remarks had implications that went beyond the engagement with The Golden Bough and perhaps even beyond the field of anthropological studies as such? It appeared that other colleagues within departments of philosophy and the study of religion were occupied with similar considerations. We decided to arrange a seminar on the matter inasmuch as we believed that there was still something to be gained from Wittgenstein’s RFGB even though a substantial amount of critical and well-qualified scholarly work had already been invested in presenting and interpreting the remarks. First of all, however, it required a thorough updating of knowledge about the text basis. Rush Rhees originally edited a selection of the remarks which was published in 1967.1 Subsequently, an expanded edition was presented by James C. Klagge (cf. this volume) and Alfred Nordmann in 1993.2 It was obviously difficult to agree on strict criteria for extracting a proper collection of ‘Frazer remarks’ from the Nachlass. Inasmuch as Wittgenstein’s commentaries on The Golden Bough didn’t form an isolated matter for him, any selective principle is bound to be part of an overall interpretation of his work. Luckily it was suggested to us by Anne-Marie Christensen Søndergaard (cf. this volume) that we make contact with Josef Rothhaupt (cf. this volume) who, at the time, had been working with a collection of notes and remarks indicated by a squiggle (Kringel) which, for Wittgenstein himself, indicated the internal organization of a possible book project. This ‘book’, which Rothhaupt entitled Das Kringel-Buch (KB) and generously circulated among us, gave us a new and more substantial background for appreciating the immediate thought-context in which Wittgenstein’s specific remarks on Frazer appeared.

1 Cf. Synthese 17, pp. 233–253. An English translation by A. C. Miles appeared in 1979 (Brynmill Press). 2 Cf. Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett (4th ed. 2004).

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 Lars Albinus

Working with colleagues in The Study of Religion, I also saw an opportunity to broaden the scope of the discussion by including the perspective of ritual studies. The contribution of a theoretical (cf. Anders Klostergaard Petersen in this volume) as well as a philosophical approach (cf. Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell in this volume) to the matter of interest in RFGB, only strengthened our intuition that the theoretical limitation of Wittgenstein’s alternating view called for a philosophical understanding on another level. By opening up the textual and philosophical context of the remarks, Josef Rothhaupt and Wilhem Krüger (cf. this volume) laid a solid ground for an in-depth understanding of Wittgenstein’s RFGB, placing them in a phase of transition from his early Tractarian philosophy to the pragmatic turn following his return to Cambridge. Philosophers Steen Brock and Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen followed up by drawing attention to the complexity of new problems which for Wittgenstein emerged in the shadow of positivism, rationalism, and the belief in cultural progress. Inspired, at least in part, by Oswald Spengler’s Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West), Wittgenstein reacted sternly to the prevailing evolutionism of his time, especially as represented by Ernest Renan and James George Frazer. It was clear to him that a different way of grasping cultural habits (of the present as well as of the past) was called for. The scientific proclivity to explain the variety of human behavior aroused his suspicion of overlooking or simply misapprehending the heart of the matter, an issue that had already brought him at odds with positivists of the Vienna Circle. He thus opposed the attempt to explain various symbolic activities from a rationalizing point of view and pointed out, for instance, that Frazer’s endeavor to explain magical practice as a kind of false science was guilty of projecting its own theoretical penchant onto a cultural practice on which it had no bearing. Most likely, Frazer’s hypothesis revealed more about his own stance – and the mentality of the times – than the foreign habit it was supposed to explain. It is not surprising, therefore that Frazer, who also gave lectures in Cambridge at the time, became the main target for Wittgenstein’s critical opposition. As Lars Madsen has shown (cf. this volume) his critique in the early remarks still reflected much of the Tractarian view, which, in its own terms, attempted to provide a cure for the theoretical pretentions of philosophy (or metaphysics). The pragmatic turn of Wittgenstein’s own thought became more prominent in the second remarks on Frazer, which Peter K. Westergaard (cf. this volume) and I have tried to show, for instance, by drawing lines to the latter part of his Philosophical Investigations (cf. Lars Albinus in this volume). At the same time, his critique of Frazer abated and gave room for questions concerning the basic recognition of a human form of life. In the aftermath of the seminar, Josef Rothhaupt contacted Professor David Stern at The University of Iowa in order to look into the comprehensive

Introduction 

 5

collection of G. E. Moore’s notes on Wittgenstein’s lectures in Cambridge 1930–33. Josef had become concerned with questions about the time and context separating the early from the later remarks, and through a perusal of Moore’s notes he now discovered that certain strains of thought informing the later remarks were actually expressed as early as 1933. This obviously placed Rhees’ dating of the later remarks (as written after 1936) in a new light. David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron have kindly agreed to the inclusion in this book of their edited text of the notes from two crucial lectures (from 5 and 9 May 1933) pertaining especially to Frazer (cf. section 7 in this volume). They are displayed together with facsimiles of Wittgenstein’s original manuscripts (MS 110, 142 , 156a) and typescripts (TS 211, 213, 220, 227, 239) provided by Trinity College in Cambridge and presented in context by Josef Rothhaupt in this volume. In light of dealing with this broader material, the editors of this volume decided to follow up upon the seminar by inviting prominent scholars to submit articles on the topic. It is thus a great privilege to have Marco Brusotti, Mauro Engelmann, James C. Klagge and Andreas Koritensky on board this anthology. The articles of the present volume inevitably deal with shared aspects of Wittgenstein’s engagement with Frazer and the philosophical issues behind it, but they take different angles which thus serve to form a nuanced picture of the complexity intrinsic to the remarks as penned without any immediate purpose of published presentation. Among the topics covered in the book are Wittgenstein’s inspiration from Spengler’s view about the fate of Western culture (Brock, Engelmann, Klagge), Goethe’s view of morphology (Albinus, Brock, Brusotti, Koritensky, Rothhaupt), and Wittgenstein’s reaction to Renan’s evolutionist view (Albinus, Rothhaupt). In order to assess the background for Wittgenstein’s interest in Frazer, questions concerning mathematics (Brock) and ‘Weltanschauung’ (Brock, Rothhaupt, Søndergaard Christensen) are dealt with, not least as a backdrop for understanding Wittgenstein’s concept of a perspicuous representation (Albinus, Brusotti, Rothhaupt, Søndergaard Christensen) introduced at the end of the first set of remarks. While both sets of remarks are viewed in light of each other (Brusotti, Rothhaupt), some of the articles have their main focus on the early remarks (Brock, Madsen, Engelmann, Koritensky, Klagge) as representing a work in progress (Brock, Krüger), while others deal especially with points pertaining to the later remarks (Albinus, Westergaard). A thread that obviously leads from the one to the other is Wittgenstein’s focus on the function of language. Yet, the concern for logical order that distinguished his early philosophy eventually turned into a pragmatic acknowledgment of ‘meaning according to use’, and the issue of understanding various forms of human gestures and expressions therefore suggested itself as matter for philosophical investigation. In other words, The Golden Bough’s description of magical practices came in handy in order for

6 

 Lars Albinus

Wittgenstein to exemplify how a historical hypothesis tends to explain away the basics of human life. By directing his attention to the field of anthropology, however, he articulated points of view which also incite a response from the field of empirical and theoretical studies in religion. Thus, part of the seminar was reserved to evaluate Wittgenstein’s RFGB from the point of view of ritual studies. Alleged elements of expressivism in Wittgenstein’s view of magic were thus critically revised in light of recent developments in cognitive theory (Klostergaard Petersen, Schaffalitzky de Muckadell). While Wittgenstein’s remarks are obviously lacking in respect of being a theory of magic and religion, it is all the more important to grasp their real inclination. In this respect it is a question for a further debate how we should assess his reference to expressions (cf. Madsen and Albinus for an interpretation that goes against expressivism). Although Wittgenstein’s reflections were of a philosophical rather than of a theoretical nature, he did admittedly engage with the very task of doing anthropology (Brusotti, Madsen, Søndergaard Christensen), and part of his intimations were that we will have to acknowledge the implicit conditions for wanting and trying to understand something which is strange and yet familiar at the same time. Far from acquitting his RFGB for being theoretically inadequate, it’s a shared conviction among the authors of this anthology that there is much more to them than a certain view on magic. That being said, we should not overlook hypothetical intuitions in The Golden Bough which, presented with some actual caution by Frazer himself (cf. Albinus), have laid an inspirational foundation for later insights into what may plausibly be grasped as cognitive implications in ritual acts (cf. Klostergaard Petersen). The articles are divided into sections consisting of 5 overall problematics. Although several topics are dealt with across these divisions, the headings are meant to direct the reader from philological and philosophical issues pertaining to the original and concrete context of RFGB (section 1), through questions concerning Wittgenstein’s philosophical background for consulting Frazer’s work (section 2), to questions relating to the transition from the first to the second set of remarks (sections 3 and 4), and finally to the wider philosophical and theoretical ramifications of Wittgenstein’s anthropological musings (section 5). It goes without saying that the present anthology of articles is not supposed to provide final words on Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer. The gnomic character of his notes will undoubtedly continue to engender various interpretations. However, this assumption only makes it all the more important to keep a close eye on the immediate historical, biographical, textual and philosophical context of the remarks. The present collection of articles is offered in reverence of this principle.

Introduction 

 7

Finally, Josef Rothhaupt and I would like to extend our utmost thanks and gratitude to Aidan Seery for his invaluable and wholehearted efforts in editing this book. We would also like to thank Anders Klostergaard Petersen cordially for financing the seminar in Aarhus, and De Gruyter for providing us with the means of publication.

Presentation of the Text and the Matter

Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ Verortung im Gesamtnachlass – Einbindung in die Philosophietradition – Editions- und Publikationsgeschichte1 Abstract: It is both possible and imperative to provide more precise philological and philosophical detail on the material of the publication Remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough were and continue to be taken up and interpreted in different ways. For the most part, this posthumously collated and published work, which appeared almost half a century after writing, appears as a ‘glacial block in the philosophical landscape’. Therefore, the goals of this article are to situate these Remarks on Fazer’s Golden Bough in the complete works of Wittgenstein, to reveal the context of their genesis in the life trajectory and work of this philosopher and to provide a critical presentation of the publication history of the various editions.

1 T  hematische Hinführung mit einer Rezension von Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Luis Borges betreute im Zeitraum Ende 1936 bis Mitte 1939 für die illustrierte Wochenzeitschrift El Hogar („Das Heim“) in Buenos Aires eine Seite mit dem Obertitel „Libros y autores extranjeros“, ausländische Bücher und Autoren. Am 11. Dezember 1936 veröffentlichte Borges folgende – hier vollständig zitierte – Buchbesprechung:2 The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion, von Sir James George Frazer Es ist nicht unmöglich, daß die anthropologischen Ideen von Dr. Frazer eines Tages unrettbar untergehen oder bereits heute Geltung verlieren; unmöglich und unwahrscheinlich ist jedoch, daß sein Werk an Interesse verlöre. Auch wenn wir all seine Mutmaßungen ver-

1 Diesen Beitrag möchte ich Friedo Ricken zu seinem 80. Geburtstag am 9. Oktober 2014 ­widmen. 2 Borges 2005: 153.

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

werfen samt den Fakten, auf die sie sich stützen, bliebe das Werk doch unsterblich: nicht als fernes Zeugnis der Leichtgläubigkeit primitiver Völker, sondern als unmittelbares Dokument der Leichtgläubigkeit der Anthropologen, sobald man ihnen etwas über Primitive erzählt. Der Glaube, daß auf der Mondscheibe die Wörter erscheinen werden, die man mit Blut auf einen Spiegel schreibt, ist kaum sonderbarer als der Glaube, daß jemand das glaubt. Im schlimmsten Fall wird Frazers Werk überdauern als Enzyklopädie wunderbarer Mitteilungen, als „silva de varia lección“, abgefaßt mit bestechender Eleganz. Es wird überdauern wie die 37 Bände von Plinius oder die Anatomy of Melancholy von Robert Burton. Der vorliegende Band behandelt die Furcht vor den Toten. Wie alle Werke Frazers ist das Buch überreich an ausgefallensten Einzelheiten. Ein Beispiel: Bekanntlich wurde Alarich von den Westgoten in einem Flußbett begraben; sie lenkten das Wasser um, ließen es später wieder zurückfließen und töteten die römischen Gefangenen, die die Arbeit ausgeführt hatten. Die übliche Deutung ist die Befürchtung, die Feinde des Königs könnten sein Grab entweihen. Ohne dies zu verwerfen, bietet Frazer uns einen anderen Schlüssel an: die Furcht davor, daß seine unbarmherzige Seele aus der Erde wiederkehren könne, um die Menschen zu tyrannisieren. Den gleichen Zweck schreibt Frazer den goldenen Bestattungsmasken aus der Akropolis von Mykene zu; alle ohne Augenöffnungen, außer einer, der eines Kindes.

2 S  ir James George Frazer und Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge 1932–1933 Sir James George Frazer hatte zur Gründung der William Wyse Foundation und des William Wyse Lehrstuhls für „Social Anthropology“ an der Universität Cambridge im Michaelmas Term 1932 und im May Term 1933 am Trinity College je sechs Vorlesungen zu The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion gehalten. Die sechs Vorlesungen des Michaelmas Term 1932 wurden bereits 1933 publiziert und die Vorlesungen des May Term 1933 wurden 1934 publiziert. Im Vorwort zum zweiten Band schreibt Frazer zum Inhalt seiner beiden Vorlesungsreihen: In this second course of lectures on the „Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion“ I resume the subject at the point at which I left off at the end of the first course. I said there that primitive man attempts to get rid of the dangerous spirits of the dead by one or other of two methods, either the method of persuasion and conciliation or the method of force and fraud. In the first course I illustrated the former method, that of persuasion and conciliation, by a variety of examples. I now take up the second method, that of force and fraud, or deception.3

3 Frazer 1934: vii.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 13

Später hatte Frazer noch einen ergänzenden Band verfasst, der im Jahre 1936 erschien und in welchem er im Vorwort schreibt: „This volume concludes my study of the Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion. It forms a sequel to the two volumes of my lectures delivered under the William Wyse Foundation at Trinity College, Cambridge.“4 Alle drei Bände wurden unter dem Titel The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion (Bände I, II, III) publiziert.5 Frazer hat also Michaelmas Term 1932 und May Term 1933 im Trinity College gelesen. Wittgenstein hat ebenfalls im Trinity College seine Lehrveranstaltungen  – „Lecture“ und „Discussion Class“ – in diesen beiden Terms abgehalten. Und George Edward Moore hat über den Zeitraum 1930–1933 hinweg fast alle Lehrveranstaltungen von Wittgenstein besucht und umfassend Mitschriften zu diesen Lehrveranstaltungen angefertigt.6 Am Freitag, dem 5. Mai 1933 spricht Wittgenstein in seiner Lehrveranstaltung (Discussion Class) erstmals explizit über Frazer.7 Er nimmt dabei ausdrücklich auf Frazers The Golden Bough Bezug und konstatiert: „Frazer constantly makes one particular kind of mistake in explanation.“ Exemplarisch macht er dann eine Ausführung zu „Bestrafung“ um Frazers Fehler beim Erklären aufzuzeigen, nämlich: „There have been 3 accounts of punishment (1) to deter (2) to improve (3) to take vengeance. / But if you ask “Why does a father punish his son?” there may be none of them, or all 3, or something between 2 of them. / […] In the case of one person, there may be many reasons & not necessarily one predominating.“ Eben jenen Fehler kann man auch in Frazers Vorlesungen The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion konstatieren, nämlich: „primitive man attempts to get rid of the dangerous spirits of the dead by one or other of two methods, either the method of persuasion and conciliation or the method of force and fraud.“ Es ist also nicht abwegig anzunehmen, dass Wittgen-

4 Frazer 1936: v. Die zitierte Rezension von Borges bezieht sich auf ebendiesen dritten Band. Und die von Borges angeführten Beispiele stammen aus Kapitel I mit der Überschrift „Precautions Against the Return of Ghosts“ (1–37); Alarich, der Anführer der Westgoten, kommt darin auf S. 28 vor, und der Bezug auf die Bestattungsmasken aus der Akropolis von Mykene findet sich auf S. 34. 5 Frazer 1933, Frazer 1934, Frazer 1936. 6 Diese originalen Mitschriften sind in G. E. Moores Nachlass, der in der Cambridge University Library verwahrt und der Forschung zugänglich gemacht wird, enthalten. Die vollständige Publikation der originalen Mitschriften ist im Erscheinen, nämlich: Stern/Rogers/Citron (im Erscheinen). Siehe dazu auch: Stern/Citron/Rogers 2013. Moore selbst hat kurz nach Wittgensteins Tod ein Exzerpt aus diesen originalen Mitschriften erstellt und publiziert, nämlich: Moore 1954 und Moore 1955. Wiederveröffentlicht: Moore 1970. 7 Siehe Stern/Rogers/Citron (im Erscheinen). Siehe das „Excerpt“ (3b) hier in dieser Veröffentlichung. Für die Erlaubnis, aus Moores Mitschriften der Lectures Wittgenstein hier vorab zitieren zu dürfen, möchte ich mich bei den Herausgebern bedanken.

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

stein die Vorlesungen von Frazer (wenigstens einige davon) selbst gehört hat oder dass er zumindest darüber eingehend unterrichtet wurde. Es ist nicht nur gut vorstellbar, sondern sogar – wie noch zu zeigen sein wird – mit Indizien gut belegbar, dass Wittgenstein in seinen Lehrveranstaltungen auch auf die Ausführungen von Frazer in dessen „William Wyse Foundation Lectures“ – insbesondere eben auf „one particularly kind of mistake“, eben die (mono-)kausale Erklärungsweise bzw. erweiternd eine evolutionistische Erklärungsweise – rekurriert. Wittgenstein führt in seiner Lehrveranstaltung am 5. Mai 1933 weiter aus: „Frazer talks of Magic performed with an effigy, & says primitive people believe that by stabbing effigy they have hurt the model.“ Aber auch hier könnten wieder mehrere kausale und/oder nicht-kausale Gründe veranschlagt werden; könnten fälschlicherweise pseudowissenschaftliche Vorstellungen und Praktiken vorhanden sein. Wittgenstein erwidert Frazer daher: I say: Only in some cases do they thus entertain a false scientific belief. / It may be that it expresses your wish to hurt. / Or it may be not even this: It may be that you have an impulse to do it, as when in anger you hit a table; which doesn’t mean that you believe you hurt it, nor need it be a survival from prehuman ancestors. / Hitting has many sides.

Wittgenstein fährt in seiner Lehrveranstaltung fort: „Frazer also talks of festivals in which effigy of a human being is killed; & explains all as due to fact that once this was done to a man.“ Und abermals erwidert Wittgenstein Frazer: „This may be so; but it’s not true that it must. / The experience of making an effigy & throwing in water has a peculiarity which may be satisfactory for its own sake: like tearing a photograph of our enemy.“ In seiner nächsten Lehrveranstaltung (Lecture) am 9. Mai 1933 greift er eben­ diese Thematik wieder auf, äußert sich zunächst verallgemeinernd und bringt dann abermals ein konkretes Beispiel aus Frazers The Golden Bough: „I was talking of a tendency, characteristic of /which came along with / European science, to give an evolutionary explanation: “This developed out of this”; & to add “This really is this”. / E.g. Frazer’s explanation of dressing up a stick, and drowning it, as a vestige of the custom of really drowning a man.“ Und nochmals kritisiert Wittgenstein die Vorgehensweise von Frazer: „It’s important to see that this needn’t be so, for one particular reason. The idea underlying this sort of explanation, that in the case of each action there is a motive which is the motive. I eat not only to nourish myself, but also because I get an agreeable tast or because … etc. etc.“ Und weiter: Frazer says: Surly an effigy wouldn’t have been burnt, if there hadn’t been a man burnt. And goes on to explain: You kill the god of fertility, in connection with the annual death of vegetation. Essence is: People at a certain stage thought it useful to kill a person in order to get good crops, & from this developed habit of pretending to kill a puppet.



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The idea is: Action can only be explained, as having as its motive to get something useful. But in fact: We don’t do everything, even in any degree, to get food etc.. If a man says we do, that is a mere rule of grammar.

Es kann gezeigt werden, dass Wittgenstein sich mit diesen seinen Ausführungen auf Frazers Ausführungen insbesondere über „The Fire-Festivals of Europe“ in seinem Hauptwerk The Golden Bough bezieht. Offen ist hier allerdings erst einmal, welche Edition dieses Werkes er zu diesem Zeitpunkt, also im Mai 1933, verwendet hat. Folgende Editionen kommen prinzipiell in Frage (Tabelle 1). Tabelle 1

A B C D

1st Edition 1890 2 Volumes

2nd Edition 1900 3 Volumes

3rd Edition 1913–1915 7 Parts / 12 Vols.

Abridged Edition 1922 1 Volume

Vol. II, Chp. IV § 2, S. 244–295 --S. 254–258 S. 255–257 [S. 254–256]

Vol. III, Chp. IV § 2, 236–350 --S. 259–266 S. 259–262 S. 259–261

Part VII, Vol. I, Chp. IV, S. 106–327 §3 S. 146–160 S. 147–149 S. 147–148

Chp. LXII S. 609–641 §4 S. 617–622 S. 617–618 S. 617–618

Über Feuerfestivals schreibt Frazer nämlich – unter der Überschrift „Balder“, dem Namen eines Gottes der germanischen Mythologie – in allen vier Wittgenstein da­mals im Jahre 1933 zur Verfügung stehenden Ausgaben – der zweibändigen ersten Auflage von 1890, der dreibändigen zweiten Auflage von 1900, der zwölfbändigen dritten Auflage von 1913–1915 (mit einem zusätzlichen Supplement im Jahre 1936) und der einbändigen gekürzten Ausgabe von 1922. Größere Textpassagen sind in allen vier Editionen gleich, denn es handelt sich bei diesem Text weitgehend um ein Zitat, welches Frazer bietet und das er der von John Ramsay verfassten Schrift Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century8 entnommen hat. Im Fortgang von der ersten bis zur dritten Auflage wurden von Frazer weitere Textpassagen und Anmerkungen hinzugefügt und einige Änderungen vorgenommen. Bei der „Abridged Edition“ wurden dann wiederum einige Textpassagen weggenommen. In Tabelle 1 sind unter A der Teil, der Band, das Kapitel, die Seitenzahlen für die Ausführungen zu „Balder“ angegeben; ist unter B jener Abschnitt, jener Para-

8 Ramsay 1888: 439–445.

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graph, jener Seitenzahlenbereich angegeben, in welchem bzw. auf welchen speziell über die „Beltan Fires“ gehandelt wird; ist in C der Umfang des von Frazer verwendeten Zitates von John Ramsay markiert; ist in D jener Seitenumfang angegeben, auf den sich Wittgenstein in seinen Vorlesungen im May Term 1933 bezieht. Wie sich noch zeigen wird, kann man die von Wittgenstein tatsächlich verwendete Edition mit zusätzlichen Belegen genau angeben. Nachdem Wittgenstein einige Bemerkungen über den hier vorhandenen Zusammenhang mit der Unterscheidung „essence“ & „accident“ vorgetragen hat, heißt es bei ihm in der Lehrveranstaltung vom 9. Mai 1933 dann „Return to Frazer“. (Siehe Stern/Rogers/Citron (im Erscheinen). Siehe das „Exzerpt“ (4a) hier in dieser Veröffentlichung.) Surely, he says, one wouldn’t think of burning an effigy, unless one believed it was a human being, or unless one’s ancestors had burnt a human being. Chapter on Fire Festivals in Europe. Beltane Fires (Midsummer /May-day/ in the Highlands) The most considerable Druidical festival is Beltane. On hills, because degrading to suppose god in a house, & near the sun. Cut a trench, build a pyre, & used to use forced fire (teineigin), & still do sometimes. All fires extinguished night before. For sacred fire wood wimbles & board. 3 × 3 or 3 × 9 persons. People guilty of adultery or murder were supposed to prevent it kindling or to prevent it having its usual virtue. After kindling, they prepared food, danced round fire; master produced large cake (Beltane cake), which was distributed; & there was one piece, such that anyone who got it was called „Beltane carline“: & some tried to put him in fire, but he was rescued by others. Sometimes people pretended to quarter him.

Diese Passage in George Edward Moores originalen Mitschriften der Lehrveranstaltungen Wittgensteins 1930–1933 zeigt deutlich, dass Wittgenstein hier aus dem „Chapter on Fire Festivals in Europe“, konkret aus dem Textabschnitt über die „Beltane Fires“ referiert. Die Formulierung „(Midsummer /May-day/ in the Highlands)“ bei Wittgenstein zitiert eben den Beginn, wörtlich: „In the Central Highlands of Scotland“ (in allen vier Ausgaben von The Golden Bough). Und Stichworte, Formulierungen und Fachtermini – nämlich: „The most considerable Druidical festival is Beltane“, „cut a trench“, „used to use forced fire (tein-eigin)“, „all fires extinguished night before“, „wood wimbler & board“, „3 × 3 or 3 × 9 persons“, „master produced large cake (Beltane cake)“, „Beltane carline“, „Sometimes people pretended to quarter him“ – belegen klar, auf welche Textpassage sich Wittgenstein konkret bezieht, auf welchen Abschnitt er in seiner Lehrveranstaltung referiert. Anhand dieser Angaben lässt sich nun eingrenzend recherchieren, welche von den vier Auflagen bzw. Ausgaben von The Golden Bough Wittgenstein dabei verwendet hat. Studiert man die Ausführungen hierzu in den vier Editio-



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nen vergleichend im Detail, so kann konstatiert werden, dass eine bei Wittgenstein erwähnte Referenz, nämlich: „The most considerable Druidical festival is Beltane“, in der ersten Edition noch nicht vorhanden ist. So kann ausgeschlossen werden, dass er diese zweibändige erste Edition von 1890 verwendet hat. Die von Wittgenstein verwendete Formulierung „Chapter on Fire Festivals in Europe“ macht klar, dass er nicht die erste Auflage von 1890 und nicht die zweite Auflage von 1900 verwendet hat, denn beide Editionen haben kein Kapitel mit der Überschrift „The Fire Festivals of Europe“, sondern (in Band II von 1890 bzw. in Band III von 1900) ein Kapitel mit dem Titel „§ 2. Balder“. Und die Ausführungen zu den Feuerfesten allgemein und zum Beltane Fest speziell sind im durchlaufenden Text ohne eigene Überschrift oder Kennzeichnung enthalten. So scheiden diese beiden Editionen also aus und es bleibt noch zu klären, welche der beiden anderen Editionen Wittgenstein im Jahre 1933 verwendet hat. In der dritten Auflage (von 1913) befindet sich im ersten Band von Teil VII des Gesamtwerkes, der den Titel „Balder the Beautiful: The Fire-Festivals of Europe, and the Doctrine of the External Soul“ trägt, tatsächlich solch ein Kapitel, nämlich: „Chapter IV – The Fire Festivals of Europe“; aber in der „Abridged Edition“ (von 1922) ist ebenfalls solch ein Kapitel vorhanden, nämlich: „Chapter LXII – The Fire-Festivals of Europe § 4. The Beltane Fires“. Damit ist noch nicht klar und endgültig erwiesen, welche Edition Wittgenstein nun tatsächlich verwendet hat.9 Bis jetzt wird in der Forschung davon ausgegangen, dass Wittgenstein erst ab 1936 die einbändige „Abridged Edition“ verwendet hat. Dabei stützt man sich auf folgende Kundgabe von Rush Rhees: „Mr Raymond Townsend gave Wittgenstein a copy of the one-volume abridged edition in 1936.“10 Dass Wittgenstein von Townsend im Jahre 1936 ein Exemplar der gekürzten, einbändigen Ausgabe von The Golden Bough geschenkt bekommen hat, mag ja zutreffen.11 Dies ist aber kein Beleg dafür, dass Wittgenstein nicht

9 Als ein Indiz, dass Wittgenstein die Edition von 1913 verwendet hat, könnte man den Umstand werten, dass es in Moores Mitschriften der Ausführungen von Wittgenstein „Fire Festivals“ (ohne Bindestrich geschrieben) heißt und dass sich diese Schreibweise nur in der Ausgabe von 1913, nicht aber in der Ausgabe von 1922 findet, denn dort steht „Fire-Festivals“ (mit Bindestrich geschrieben). Hier ist dann aber nicht zu vergessen, dass es sich dabei ja um Mitschriften der Lehrveranstaltung von Wittgenstein durch Moore handelt, und so hat die Schreibweise keine oder nur sehr schwache Aussagekraft. 10 Rhees in Fußnote 16 zum Beitrag „Conversations with Wittgenstein“, Drury 1984: 119 (Fußnote 16 dazu 220). 11 Rhees, der – bis auf wenige Ausnahmen – alle Bücher Wittgensteins geerbt hatte, dürfte auch dieses Exemplar von The Golden Bough mit einer widmenden Inschrift von Townsend an Wittgenstein besessen haben. Volker Munz teilte mir freundlicherweise mit, dass sich eben dieses Exemplar nun aber in der Bibliothek von Yorick Smythies befand.

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schon Jahre zuvor ebendiese, bereits 1922 erstmals erschienene Ausgabe konsultiert und gelesen, ja sogar – wie noch zu zeigen sein wird – daraus exzerpiert und dazu kommentiert hat. In einem nachfolgenden Abschnitt dieses Beitrags kann dann auch dargetan werden, dass sich eine klare und eindeutige Aussage treffen und eine gut begründete Position einnehmen lässt, welche Edition nun Wittgenstein wirklich im May Term 1933 verwendet hat. In der Lehrveranstaltung am 9. Mai 1933 äußert sich Wittgenstein alsdann fortführend zu den „Beltane Fires“: Frazer thinks this is a remnant of a feast in which a human being was burnt. But to say this fails to explain why the story makes an impression independently of its origin. It is queer that people should pretend to burn a man. It’s also queer that one particular piece of a cake should have this significance. The people who do it don’t believe that once a man was burnt. Hence it follows that pretending to burn is something which has its own feeling & its own seriousness. And, that in other cases a real human being was burnt, only shews that all sorts of different things exist side by side. So the alternative of 3 × 3, or 3 × 9, only shows what varieties there are.

Zu vermerken ist hier, dass Wittgenstein von Frazers Auffassung direkt eine Verbindung zu Darwins Auffassung schlägt. Er macht dies am Beispiel der evolutionistischen Bezogenheit von Emotionen deutlich, nämlich: Cf. Darwin’s explanation of expression of emotions: Why do we shew our teeth when angry? because our ancestors wanted to bite. Why does our hair stand up when frightened? because our ancestors, like other animals, frightened their enemy by looking bigger. Why do lacrimal glands produce tears, when we’re in grief?

Am 15. Mai 1933 bezieht sich Wittgenstein in seiner Lehrveranstaltung (Lecture) abermals auf das „Beltane Festival“ und lässt verlauten, dass die Faszination von Menschen dabei eben nicht durch die kausale Entstehung, also durch die ursprünglich tatsächliche, leibhaftige Verbrennung eines Menschen zu Stande kommt, sondern dass wir Menschen dieses Ereignis mit anderen ähnlichen Ereignissen in Beziehung bringen bzw. zusammen sehen. Dabei findet sich in den Aufzeichnungen der Lectures von Wittgenstein durch Moore die ausführliche Referenz auf den Beginn von The Golden Bough überhaupt, nämlich auf den „King of the Wood“ am See von Nemi in Italien als „Chapter I“, das Frazer mit dem Gemälde „The Golden Bough“ (1834) von Joseph Mallord William Turner als Frontispiz beginnen lässt.



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3 W  ittgenstein zitiert Goethe In seiner Lehrveranstaltung (Lecture) am 22. Mai 1933 geht Wittgenstein dann noch einmal auf das Beltane-Feuerfest ein und – hierauf sei nun extra hingewiesen – stellt eine Verbindung zu Goethes Metamorphose der Pflanzen (und nochmals zu Darwin) her.12 What satisfies my puzzlement about Beltane, is not kind of causal explanation which Frazer gives – which is a hypothesis; but simply describing lots of things more or less like Beltane. Goethe in Metamorphose der Pflanzen, suggests that all plants are variations on a theme. What is the theme? Goethe says „They all point to a hidden law“. But you wouldn’t ask: What is the law? That they point, is all there is to it. Darwin made a hypothesis to account for this.

Interessant und aussagekräftig ist es, hier zusätzlich eine erst Ende der 40er Jahre von Wittgenstein gegenüber seinem Freund Maurice O’Connor Drury gemachte Ausführung zur Evolutionstheorie und der dabei gemachten Verabsolutierung eines partiell wissenschaftlichen, biologischen Zeitbegriffs zu zitieren: One day I was walking with Wittgenstein in the Zoological gardens here in Dublin. We discussed as we looked at the various animals the theory of evolution. He said to me that people today wanted to say that the long ages of evolution had at last culminated in producing a mind which could trace and understand the whole process that had given it birth. To talk in this way shows a complete confusion of categories. It is taking a valuable hypothesis in biology out of its proper context and making it an absolute idea applicable to every conceptual realm. The mind is not something which ‚has a place in nature‘, the concept of nature is nothing but a useful tool of the mind.13

Wittgenstein zeigt – contra Frazer und contra Darwin – nämlich einen gangbaren Weg auf, wie man die von Frazer bzw. Darwin vorgenommene, aber nicht angebrachte, ja verfälschende kausale Erklärungsweise einerseits und das nur hypothetische Veranschlagen eines Entwicklungsgesetzes andererseits vermeiden kann.

12 Siehe Stern/Rogers/Citron (im Erscheinen). 13 Drury 1983: 98. Dieser Text von Maurice O’Connor Drury ist ein außergewöhnliches sowohl philosophisches als auch literarisches Dokument, das bis jetzt weitgehend unterschätzt wird.

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○/ „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ möchte man zu der Frazerschen Samm Tatsachensammlung sagen. Dieses Gesetz, diese Idee, kann ich nun durch eine Entwicklungshypothese ausdrücken oder auch, analog dem Schema einer Pflanze durch das Schema einer religiösen Zeremonie oder aber durch die Gruppierung des Tatsachen-Materials allein, in einer ‚übersichtlichen‘ Darstellung.

Diese soeben gebotene Bemerkung stammt nun nicht aus den Ausführungen Wittgensteins über Goethes Metamorphose der Pflanzen in seiner Lehrveranstaltung am 22. Mai 1933, in welcher er ja ebendavon handelt, sondern aus Wittgensteins Aufzeichnungen vom 2. Juli 1931 in dem Manuskriptband MS 110: 256 – wurde also zwei Jahre zuvor niedergeschrieben.14 Bereits dort schrieb er nämlich seine Bemerkungen über Frazers The Golden Bough ebenfalls mit direkter Verbindung zu Goethes Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen.15 Ganz unscheinbar – und nur für Kundige sofort als Zitat aus Goethes Gedicht mit ebendiesem Titel erkennbar – kommt folgende Formulierung daher: „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“. Sie findet sich gleich zu Beginn des Gedichtes Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, nämlich16: Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen Dich verwirret, Geliebte, die tausendfältige Mischung dieses Blumengewühls über den Garten umher; viele Namen hörest du an, und immer verdränget mit barbarischem Klang einer den andern im Ohr. Alle Gestalten sind ähnlich, und keine gleichet der andern; und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz, auf ein heiliges Rätsel. O könnt‘ ich dir, liebliche Freundin, überliefern sogleich glücklich das lösende Wort! […]

Nicht das „geheime Gesetz“ selbst, nicht das „heilige Rätsel“ als solches ist für Wittgenstein maßgebend, sondern das Deuten des Chor ist für ihn ausschlaggebend. Es existiert zu ebendieser Chor-Bemerkung von Wittgenstein ein 1933/34 verfasster Taschennotizbucheintrag in MS 156a: 48v. Und der Wortlaut ebenjener

14 Im Jahre 1931 benutzt Wittgenstein übrigens die 12-bändige Edition von 1913–1915. Siehe Drury 1984: 119. 15 Es ist davon auszugehen, dass Wittgenstein nicht nur Goethes Gedicht Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen aus dem Jahre 1798 gut kannte, sondern auch Goethes botanische Schrift Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären aus dem Jahre 1790 eingehend rezipiert hatte. 16 Goethe 1987, I 3: 85–87 und II 6: 140–143.



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nach dem 2. Juli 1931, um den bzw. kurz nach dem 22. Mai 1933, entstandenen Notiz (Abb. 1) ist höchst aussagekräftig: „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ Daß es deutet ist eben das Sprechende // das, was auf uns wirkt// Es ist nicht ein Gesetz welches wir wahrnehmen, sondern etwas, was man die Ahnung eines Gesetzes nennen könnte. Das undeutliche Bild eines Menschen zu sehen hat eine bestimmte Wirkung ob es nun von einem wirklichen Menschen ausgeht oder nicht.

Hier haben wir es mit einer schriftlichen Fixierung eines Kernelementes der Philosophie bzw. des Philosophierens Wittgensteins zu tun, das erstmals Mitte 1931 bei ihm explizit auftaucht, das er alsdann auch in seinen Lectures im Mai 1933 erörtert – und zentrale Bemerkungen aus MS 110 dazu dann über das „Big Typescript“ TS 213 in die verschiedenen Fassungen der „Philosophischen Untersuchungen“ von MS 142 bis TS 227 an zentraler Stelle einbaut. In den beiden hier behandelten Fällen – Manuskripteintrag in MS 110 am 2. Juli 1931 und Lecture am 22. Mai 1933 – ist die Verbindung von Frazer und Goethe vorhanden; Wittgenstein korrigiert dabei das kausale und entwicklungshypothetische Konzept von Frazer mit dem Konzept des Chor von Goethe; er setzt dem Kausalgesetz und dem Entwicklungsgesetz das methodische Konzept einer „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ entgegen. Um die zentrale Bedeutung dieses philosophisch-methodischen Konzeptes der „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ adäquat verstehen zu können, ist es erforderlich, ebenjenen Ursprungskontext, wie er sich in Manuskript MS 110: 256–257 findet, präsent zu haben. Das Verhandeln dieser Thematik in den Lehrveranstaltungen im Mai 1933 (und in MS 156a: 48v) ist dann bereits darauf aufbauend bzw. den Ursprungskontext voraussetzend. Die genaue Kenntnis der Bemerkungen, die jener mit dem Goethe-Zitat in MS 110 „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ unmittelbar vorausgehen und unmittelbar nachfolgen, ist für ein treffendes Verstehen unabdingbar.

4 Wittgenstein zitiert Goethe, der Schiller zitiert Die drei der Chor-Gesetz-Sektion direkt vorausliegenden Sektionen in Manuskriptband MS 110: 256 vom 2. Juli 1931 lauten: / In den alten Riten haben wir den Gebrauch einer äußerst ausgebildeten Gebärdensprache vor uns.

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Und wenn ich in Frazer lese so möchte ich auf Schritt & Tritt sagen: Alle diese Prozesse & Wandlungen haben wir noch in unserer Wortsprache vor uns. Wenn der letzte Bündel der Kornwolf genannt wird, aber auch der Mann der sie bindet, & auch der Kuchen den er ißt, so erkennen wir hierin einen uns wohlbekannten sprachlichen Vorgang. ○/ Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen. Und der Ritus der alten Mythen war eine Sprache. ○/ „Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.“ (Schiller)

Wittgenstein setzt Riten und Wortsprache, setzt Bedeutungswandel in Riten und in Sprache in Relation. Dabei nimmt er exemplarisch Bezug auf den „Kornwolf“, denn auch in diesem ethnologischen, volkskundlichen Kontext trifft zu: „Alle Gestalten sind ähnlich, und keine gleichet der andern; und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz, auf ein heiliges Rätsel.“ Frazer handelt in The Golden Bough vom „Kornwolf“, exakter: vom „Corn-Spirit as a Wolf or a Dog“.17 [W]hen the wind sets the corn in wave-like motion the peasants often say, „The Wolf is going over, or through, the corn,“ […] „The Wolf is in the corn,“ […]. And in Germany generally it appears to be common saying that „the Wolf sits in the last sheaf.“ […] In Mecklenburg the last bunch of standing corn is itself commonly called the Wolf, and the man who reaps it „has the wolf,“ […]. The reaper of the last corn is himself called Wolf or Rye-wolf […]. The last sheaf of corn is also called the Wolf or the Rye-wolf or the Oats-wolf according to the crop, and of the woman who binds it they say, „The Wolf is biting her,“ „She has the Wolf,“ […]. Moreover, she herself is called Wolf […]. In many places the sheaf called Wolf is made up in human form and dressed in clothes. […] Sometimes it appears that the Wolf, caught in the last corn, lives during the winter in the farmhouse, ready to renew his activity as corn-spirit in the spring.

Die Grundeinsicht seines innovativen Umgangs mit Frazers beeindruckenden umfassenden Tatsachensammlungen von Riten und Bräuchen bringt Wittgenstein dann in die zentrale Formulierung: „Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen. Und der Ritus der alten Mythen war eine Sprache.“ Daran gleich anschließend findet sich das Zitat „‚Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.‘“ Und zudem die Referenz „(Schiller)“ – auf Friedrich von Schiller versteht sich. Konkret wird hier nämlich auf eine Begebenheit zwischen Goethe und Schiller, die im Jahre 1794 stattgefunden hat und welche Goethe unter der Überschrift „Glückliches Ereignis“18 berichtet, Bezug genommen. Diese Bege-

17 Frazer 1922, Kap. XLVIII, § 2, 448–450 („Abridged Edition“). 18 Goethe 1987, II 11: 13–20.



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benheit zu kennen ist von Bedeutung auch für das angemessene Verstehen des hier behandelten Bemerkungskontextes bei Wittgenstein.19 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe schildert seine nähere Verbindung mit Friedrich von Schiller, die am 20. Juli 1794 mit einem Disput über Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen begann. Bei der Betrachtung der denkerisch-philosophischen Beziehung zwischen Goethe und Schiller lassen sich auch tiefere Einblicke in Rezeption und Verarbeitung bestimmter Ansichten bei Wittgenstein bezüglich seines Konzeptes der „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ gewinnen. Zusätzlich gilt, dass mit einem sorgfältig ausgewählten und präzise platzierten Zitat, das Wittgenstein als Manuskripteintrag aufnimmt, auch – sozusagen pars pro toto – der gesamte ursprüngliche Kontext, das weitere Gedankenumfeld evoziert werden soll. Ein Zitat dient Wittgenstein sehr oft zur Markierung eines thematischen Areals, eines geistesgeschichtlichen Horizonts, eines kulturgeschichtlichen bzw. kulturellen Umfeldes. Dafür ist die hier behandelte Bemerkung, die ja nur aus dem Zitat eines einzigen kurzen Satzes und der Nennung eines einzigen Namens besteht – Wittgenstein zitiert Goethe, der Schiller zitiert – ein exemplarisches Beispiel. Es geht um das Verhältnis von „Erfahrung“ und „Idee“, von „Empirie“ und „Logik“, um den „Ausdruck einer Erfahrung“ und den „Ausdruck einer Norm“. Den Text „Glückliches Ereignis“20, auf den sich dieses Schiller-Goethe-Wittgenstein-Zitat bezieht, veröffentlichte Goethe zusammen mit dem Lehrgedicht Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen als Abschluss des ersten Heftes seiner Zeitschrift Zur Morphologie. Goethe schildert darin die „ungeheuere Kluft“ zwischen seiner Denkweise und der Schillers: „Niemand konnte läugnen, daß zwischen zwei Geistesantipoden mehr als ein Erddiameter die Scheidung mache, da sie denn beiderseits als Pole gelten mögen, aber eben deßwegen in Eins nicht zusammenfallen können.“ Beide trafen sich persönlich erstmals bei einer Sitzung der von August Batsch begründeten Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Jena. Nach dieser Sitzung machte Schiller Goethe gegenüber eine Bemerkung darüber, „wie eine so zerstückelte Art die Natur zu behandeln, den Laien, der sich gern darauf einließe, keineswegs anmuthen könne“. Goethe erwiderte darauf, „daß es doch wohl noch eine andere Weise geben könne, die Natur nicht gesondert und vereinzelt vorzunehmen, sondern sie wirkend und lebendig, aus dem Ganzen in die Theile strebend darzustellen“. Schiller konnte jedoch nicht „eingestehen, daß ein solches“, wie Goethe behauptet, „schon aus der Erfahrung hervorgehe“. Daraufhin trug Goethe die Grundgedanken seiner Metamorphose der Pflanzen vor. Am Ende schüttelte Schiller den Kopf und sprach: „‚Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine

19 Vgl. hierzu Rothhaupt 1996: 173–176. 20 Goethe 1987, II 11: 13–20.

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Idee.‘“ Dadurch war der Punkt, der beide trennt, „auf’s strengste bezeichnet“. In Goethe wollte sich Groll gegen Schiller regen, doch er nahm sich zusammen und erwiderte: „Das kann mir sehr lieb sein, daß ich Ideen habe, ohne es zu wissen, und sie sogar mit Augen sehe.“ Jedoch Schiller entgegnete „als gebildeter Kantianer“. Und aus dem „hartnäckigen Realismus“ Goethes heraus entstand lebhafter Widerspruch. Es „ward viel gekämpft und dann Stillstand gemacht; keiner von beiden konnte sich für den Sieger halten, beide hielten sich für unüberwindlich“. Dieses Patt – zugleich eine sehr zentrale und weitreichende Themen- bzw. Problemstellung, auch im Philosophieren Wittgensteins – fasst Goethe in diesem autobiographischen Bericht so zusammen21: Sätze wie folgender machten mich ganz unglücklich: „Wie kann jemals Erfahrung gegeben werden, die einer Idee angemessen sein sollte? Denn darin besteht eben das Eigentümliche der letzteren, daß ihr niemals eine Erfahrung congruieren könne.“ Wenn er das für eine Idee hielt, was ich als Erfahrung aussprach, so mußte doch zwischen beiden irgend etwas Vermittelndes, Bezügliches obwalten.

„Vermittelndes“ bzw. „Bezügliches“ ist bei Wittgenstein – anders als bei Goethe die „Urpflanze“ bzw. eine „Urgestalt“ bzw. ein „Urphänomen“ – die Sprache, das aufmerksame, übersichtliche, adäquate Handhaben von Sprache.

5 „ Übersichtliche Darstellung“ im Kontext der „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ und im Kontext der „Philosophischen Untersuchungen“ Die drei direkt auf die Chor-Gesetz-Sektion folgenden Sektionen in Manuskriptband MS 110: 257 handeln dann weiterführend und explizierend von der „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ und von der „Wichtigkeit der Zwischenglieder [des Findens von Zwischengliedern]“ (Abb. 2b): / Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns von grundlegender Bedeutung. Er bezeichnet unsere Darstellungsform, die Art wie wir die Dinge sehen. (Eine Art der ‚Weltanschauung‘ wie sie scheinbar für unsere Zeit typisch ist.) / Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt Verstehen welches eben darin

21 Goethe 1987, II 11: 18.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 25

besteht daß wir die „Zusammenhänge sehen“. Daher die Wichtigkeit der Zwischenglieder [des Findens von Zwischengliedern] ○/ Ein Hypothetisches Zwischenglied aber soll in diesem Falle nichts tun als die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Ähnlichkeit, den Zusammenhang, der wirklichen Tatsachen lenken. Wie wenn man eine interne Beziehung der Kreisform zur Elipse dadurch illustrieren wollte daß man eine Elipse al[l]mählich in einen Kreis überführt; aber nicht um zu behaupten daß eine gewisse Elipse tatsächlich, historisch, aus einem Kreis entstanden wäre (Entwicklungshypothese) sondern nur um unserem Auge einen formalen Zusammenhang zu schärfen. Aber auch die Entwicklungshypothese kann ich als weiter nichts sehen als die Einkleidung eines formalen Zusammenhangs.

Beachtenswert ist – und hier wird zudem die Differenz zwischen Goethe und Wittgenstein deutlich –, dass Wittgenstein das Schema einer „Urpflanze“, allgemeiner: einer „Urgestalt“ bzw. eines „Urphänomens“, nicht mitübernimmt, sondern lediglich das überschaubare Gruppieren und übersichtliche Präsentieren des Materials der Tatsachen bzw. des Materials der Sprache favorisiert, denn – so Wittgensteins pointiertes zusammenfassendes Statement: „Dieses Gesetz, diese Idee, kann ich nun durch eine Entwicklungshypothese ausdrücken oder auch, analog dem Schema einer Pflanze durch das Schema einer religiösen Zeremonie oder aber durch die Gruppierung des Tatsachen-Materials allein, in einer ‚übersichtlichen‘ Darstellung.“ (MS 110: 256) Also weder „Entwicklungshypothese“, noch „Schema“, sondern „übersichtliche Darstellung“. Hier haben wir es mit einem Zentralmoment in Wittgensteins Art und Weise zu philosophieren zu tun. Er hat es im Kontext seiner Bemerkungen über Frazers The Golden Bough erstmals Mitte 1931 schriftlich fixiert. Und ebendieser Ursprungskontext ist wichtig, um Wittgensteins „Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung“ treffend einschätzen zu können, um Wittgensteins Ausführungen in seinen Lehrveranstaltungen Mitte 1933 angemessen interpretieren zu können, und um dieses Konzept in den verschiedenen Fassungen der „Philosophischen Untersuchungen“ in seiner Tragweite überblicken zu können. Der weitreichende Transfer der beiden Bemerkungen zur „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ soll deshalb hier anschaulich dokumentiert, illustriert und kommentiert werden. Bewusst werden die entsprechenden Manuskript- und Typoskriptseiten als Faksimile reproduziert (Abb. 2 bis Abb. 9).22 Dabei lassen sich

22 Für die Erlaubnis, diese Faksimileabbildungen aus Wittgensteins Nachlass hier publizieren zu dürfen, sei ausdrücklich den Masters and Fellows of Trinity College in Cambridge und der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek gedankt. Auch Jonathan Smith an der Trinity College Library für seine Hilfe vielen Dank. Und insbesondere Alois Pichler, dem Leiter der Wittgenstein Archives

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zwei Transferstränge ausmachen, die beide mit dem verdoppelten Transfer von der Ursprungsquelle MS 110: 257/1+2 in TS 211 entstanden, nämlich einerseits in einen allgemeinen philosophischen Kontext in TS 221: 281/7+282/1 (Text der zwei Bemerkungen) und andererseits in den speziellen philosophischen Kontext von Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211: 322/1+2 (Referenz „zwei Bemerkungen“). Während der spezielle Kontext von Wittgenstein alsdann – höchst aufschlussreich – auch ins so genannte Kringel-Buch (=KB) weiterverlegt wurde, lässt sich für den allgemeinen Kontext in Wittgensteins Nachlass ein ausgedehntes – höchst aufschlussreiches – Transferprofil nachzeichnen. Folgende Tabelle (Tabelle 2) mit den Transferprofilen kann dies zusammenfassend veranschaulichen. Eine Detailanalyse zeigt für den dazu thematisch relevanten Bemerkungskontext, dass vom Ursprungzusammenhang in MS 110: 256–257 (Abb. 1a und Abb. 1b), welcher aus sieben Sektionen besteht, vier Sektionen in den speziellen Frazer-Teil in TS 211: 321–322 (Abb. 2a und Abb. 2b) aufgenommen wurden (256/5; 257/1; 257/2; 257/3) und dass sogar sechs Sektionen ins Kringel-Buch gelangten (256/3; 256/4; 256/5; 257/1; 257/2; 257/3). In den allgemeinen Teil von TS 211: 281–282 (Abb. 3a und Abb. 3b) gelangten drei Sektionen (256/2; 257/1; 257/2) und diese gelangten dann auch in das so genannte „Big Typescript“ TS 213 – allerdings an zwei verschiedenen Orten, denn während die Sektionen 257/1=281/7 und 257/2=282/1 ins Kapitel 89 „Methode der Philosophie: die übersichtliche Darstellung der grammatischen // sprachlichen // Tatsachen. / Das Ziel: Durchsichtigkeit der Argumente, Gerechtigkeit.“ (417/2+3) komponiert wurden (Abb. 4a), fand Sektion 256/2=281/6 in Kapitel 93 „Die Mythologie in den Formen unserer Sprache. ((Paul Ernst.))“ (433/1) ihren Platz (Abb. 4b). Einzig die beiden expliziten Bemerkungen zur „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ traten dann – einerseits herausgelöst aus dem Kontext der Frazer-Bemerkungen (und der Kontextualisierung mit Spenglers „Weltanschauung“) und andererseits in ihrer Reihenfolge vertauscht, textmäßig ergänzt und (teilweise) zu Subsektionen zusammengezogen – den Transferweg innerhalb der Genese der „Philosophischen Untersuchungen“ (im engeren Sinne) an, nämlich von der PU-Urfassung (MS 142, §115b+c) (Abb. 5) in die PU-Frühfassung (TS 220, §122aE+b) (Abb. 6a und Abb. 6b) über die bearbeitete PU-Frühfassung (TS 239, §131E+§132) (Abb. 7) in die PU-Zwischenfassung und in die PU-Schlussfassung (TS 227, §122aE+b) (Abb. 8).

at the University of Bergen, gebührt Dank für die Bereitstellung von neu angefertigten Faksimiles. Gerade die derzeit betriebene Erstellung und Bereitstellung (Plattforn: www.wittgensteinsource. org) neuer Faksimiles des ganzen Nachlasses bedeutet einen wichtigen Beitrag für die zukünftige Erforschung des gesamten Œuvres von Ludwig Wittgenstein.



 27

Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Tabelle 2 I

II

III

MS 110

Bemerk­ungs­ anfang

256/2 In den alten Riten haben wir den Gebrauch einer äußerst 256/3 Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen. 256/4 „Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.“ (Schiller) 256/5 „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ möchte 257/1 Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns 257/2 Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das 257/3 Ein Hypothetisches Zwischenglied aber soll in dem Falle

IV

V

VI

Sekt. KB mark

TS 211 (Allg)

/

---

○/

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

TS TS 211 213 (Frazer)

MS 142

TS 220

TS 239

TS 227

281/6

---

433/1

---

---

---

---

ja

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

○/

ja

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

○/

ja

---

321/5

---

---

---

---

---

/

zwei Bem.

281/7

[322/1] 417/2 zwei Bem.

§115c

§122b §132

/

zwei Bem.

282/1

[322/2] 417/3 zwei Bem.

§115b §122aE §131E

§122aE

○/

ja

---

322/3

---

---

---

---

---

§122b

Auf das von Wittgenstein während der PU-Genese durchgeführte Feintuning soll hier nur exemplarisch aufmerksam gemacht werden, nämlich auf drei bedeutende und vielsagende Änderungen bzw. Ergänzungen in TS 239:23 1) Die handschriftliche Erweiterung des Satzes „Daher die Wichtigkeit des Findens der Z w i s c h e n g l i e d e r. “ in den Satz „Daher die Wichtigkeit des Findens der Z w i s c h e n g l i e d e r < n > . “ (TS 239, §131E); 2) Die hand-

23 Siehe hierzu Rothhaupt 2015.

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schriftliche Änderung der Formulierung „(Vielleicht eine Art ‚Weltanschauung‘. Spengler.)“ in „(Vielleicht eine Art der ‚Weltanschauung‘. Spengler.)“ (TS 239, §132E); 3) Das handschriftlich ergänzende Hinzufügen einer neuen Sektion im Anschluss an die beiden Sektionen zur „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ mit dem Wortlaut „Ein philosophisches Problem hat die Form: ‚Ich kenne mich nicht aus.‘“ (TS 239, §133) Die ursprüngliche Einbettung in den und Verknüpfung mit dem Frazer-Kontext bildet aber die Basis für ein adäquates Verstehen und für den passenden Umgang mit Wittgensteins zentralen Begriffen bzw. Methoden der „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ und des „Findens von Zwischengliedern“. So gilt es ebendiesen ursprünglichen Kontext, wie er in MS 110: 256–257 vorhanden ist und dort am 2. Juli 1931 niedergeschrieben wurde, im Auge zu behalten, nämlich: „In den alten Riten haben wir den Gebrauch einer äußerst ausgebildeten Gebärdensprache.“ – „Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen.“ –„‚Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.‘ (Schiller)“ – „‚Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz‘“ – „Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns von grundlegender Bedeutung.“ – „Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das Verstehen/ welches eben darin besteht daß wir die ‘Zusammenhänge sehen‘.“ – „Ein Hypothetisches Zwischenglied aber soll in diesem Falle nichts tun als die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Ähnlichkeiten, den Zusammenhang, der wirklichen Tatsachen lenken.“ Weiterhin ist natürlich auch die von Wittgenstein in seinen Lehrveranstaltungen im May Term 1933 betriebene Beschäftigung mit Frazer dabei heranzuziehen. Und zusätzlich ist es sinnvoll und hilfreich, ebenjene – bereits zitierte – Einzelbemerkung in MS 156a: 48v von 1932/33 – die Wittgenstein extra auf eine eigene Manuskriptseite geschrieben und eigens hervorhebend umrahmt hat (Abb. 1) – heranzuziehen. Wittgensteins Bezugnahmen auf Frazers Ansichten in Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933 from the Notes of George Edward Moore24 wurden hier behandelt. Vergleicht man diese Originalaufzeichnungen mit dem von G. E. Moore nach Wittgensteins Tod veröffentlichten zusammenfassenden Bericht Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930–3325 einerseits und mit den von Alice Ambrose und Margaret MacDonald herausgegebenen Wittgentein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–193526 andererseits, so wird deutlich, wie wichtig der Rückgriff auf eine möglichst authentische Textbasis ist und wie leicht und wie schnell abweichende, verzerrende Schilderungen entstehen.

24 Stern/Rogers/Citron (im Erscheinen). 25 Moore 1970: 315–316. 26 Ambrose/MacDonald 1982: 33.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 1: MS 156a: 48v (1933/34)

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Abbildung 2a: MS 110: 256 (D: 2. Juli 1931)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 2b: MS 110: 257 (D: 2. Juli 1931)

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Abbildung 3a: TS 211: 281 (1932)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 3b: TS 211: 282 (1932)

 33

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Abbildung 4a: TS 211: 321 (1932)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 4b: TS 211: 322 (1932)

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Abbildung 5a: TS 213: 417 (1933)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 5b: TS 213: 433 (1933)

 37

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Abbildung 6: MS 142: 107 (1936/37)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 7a: TS 220: 80 (1937/38)

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Abbildung 7b: TS 220: 81 (1937/38)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

Abbildung 8: TS 239: 77.5 (1938–1944)

 41

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Abbildung 9: TS 227: 88 (1946–49)



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 43

6 W  ittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen – „synopsis“ statt „hypothesis“ – Ästhetik Am 26. Mai 1933 knüpft Wittgenstein in seiner Lehrveranstaltung (Discussion Class) interessanterweise eine Verbindung von seinen Bemerkungen zu Frazers Ansichten, konkret zu Frazers unbefriedigenden Hypothesenbildungen – „Frazer tells us lots of interesting stories, & joins them up by threading them on a hypothesis; but what satisfies is not the hypothesis“ – und zur Nutzlosigkeit und Sinnlosigkeit von Hypothesenbildungen auf ästhetischem Terrain – „Aesthetic craving for an explanation is not satisfied by a hypothesis.“ There’s no such thing as an immediate recognition of an hypothesis as an hypothesis; but there is an immediate pleasure in seeing a neat way of representation. E.g. to explain the odd way something moves, we may suggest a mechanism which both serves as an hypothesis, & enables you to overlook a system at a glance. So Frazer tells us lots of interesting stories, & joins them up by threading them on a hypothesis; but what satisfies is not the hypothesis. Aesthetic craving for an explanation is not satisfied by a hypothesis. This is what I mean by saying Aesthetics is not Psychology. […] What I dislike about Psychology is perhaps only a muddle – a tendency to explain away. E.g. „Science is greater than Art, because it shows you the general, not merely the particular.“ […] In Mathematics, Ethics, Aesthetics, Philosophy, answer to a puzzle is to make a synopsis possible. […] The idea of Psychology explaining experiences on rhythm in the laboratory. Why did I? I had a natural propensity to think about ideas which arise in music; & I thought what was wanted was to make experiments in a laboratory. My idea was to investigate nature of rhythm, because you can produce it quite exactly by machinery. I was looking forward to talking with my subjects about something which inte-

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rested me. To most people the rhythm meant nothing: one lady said: „It makes me feel like a butterfly with a pin through me.“27

Das von Wittgenstein im Kontext seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Frazer entwickelte Konzept einer „übersichtlichen Darstellung“ tritt gerade auch hier in prominenter Weise zu Tage – „In Mathematics, Ethics, Aesthetics, Philosophy, answers to a puzzle is to make a synopsis possible.“

7 F razer-Bemerkungen und Renan-Bemerkungen in Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch Das Kringel-Buch ist eine besondere, von Wittgenstein selbst erstellte Bemerkungssammlung.28 Fasst man all jene Sektionen zusammen, die in den Manuskriptbänden von MS 107: 159/1 bis MS 112: 70v/4 (bzw. MS 158: 35r/1) für den Zeitraum Oktober 1929 bis November 1931 (bzw. etwa Mitte 1938) mit der Sektionsmarkierung eines „Kringels“ versehen sind, so erhält man eine – von Wittgenstein selbst erstellte – Bemerkungssammlung von insgesamt etwa 235 Sektionen. Und in ebendiesem Konvolut befinden sich nicht nur Bemerkungen mit autobiographischem und kulturellem Inhalt, sondern eben auch die „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ (Teil I). Von großer Bedeutung ist dabei der besondere größere Kontext, in welchem Wittgensteins kritische Ausführungen zu Frazers Ansichten zu stehen kommen. Beispielsweise sind im Kringel-Buch auch die Renan-Bemerkungen, wie sie Wittgenstein im Manuskript MS 109: 200/2–201/2 am 5.11.1930 – also acht Monate vor der Niederschrift der Frazer-Bemerkungen in Manuskript MS 110 – verfasst hat, enthalten. Nämlich: ○/ Ich lese in Renan Peuple d’Israel: „La naissance, la maladie, la mort, le délire, la catalepsie, le sommeil, les rêves frappaient infiniment, et, même aujourd’hui, il n’est donné qu’à un petit nombre de voir clairement que ces phénomènes ont leurs causes dans notre organisation.“29 Im Gegenteil es besteht gar kein Grund sich über diese Dinge zu wundern; weil sie so alltäglich sind. Wenn sich der primitive Mensch über sie wundern muß, wie viel

27 Wittgenstein hatte während seiner Studienjahre 1911–1914 in Cambridge am Psychologischen Institut bei Charles Samuel Myers Untersuchungen zum Rhythmus in der Musik gemacht. Siehe Rothhaupt 2011: 149–157. 28 Wittgenstein 2011. 29 Zur Referenz auf den französischen Originaltext Renan 1923. Das Zitat findet sich in Band 1, 54. In der autorisierten deutschen Übersetzung Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 28.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 45

mehr der Hund & der Affe. Oder nimmt man an daß die Menschen quasi plötzlich aufgewacht sind & diese Dinge die schon immer da waren nun zum ersten Mal plötzlich bemerkten & begreiflicherweise erstaunt waren? – Ja, etwas ähnliches könnte man sogar annehmen; aber nicht daß sie diese Dinge zum erstenmal wahrnahmen sondern daß sie plötzlich anfingen sich über sie zu wundern. Das aber hat wieder nichts mit ihrer Primitivität zu tun. Es sei denn daß man es primitiv nennt sich nicht über die Dinge zu wundern, dann aber sind gerade die heutigen Menschen & Renan selbst primitiv wenn er glaubt die Erklärung der Wissenschaft könne das Staunen heben. Als ob der Blitz heute alltäglicher oder weniger staunenswert wäre als vor 2000 Jahren. Zum Staunen muß der Mensch – und vielleicht Völker – aufwachen. Die Wissenschaft ist ein Mittel um ihn wieder einzuschläfern. ○\ D.h. einfach es ist falsch zu sagen: Natürlich, diese primitiven Völker mußten alle Phänomene anstaunen. Vielleicht aber richtig: diese Völker haben alle Dinge ihrer Umgebung angestaunt. – Daß sie sie anstaunen mußten ist ein primitiver Aberglaube. (Wie der, daß sie sich vor allen Naturkräften fürchten mußten & wir uns nicht fürchten mu müssen //). Aber die Erfahrung mag lehren daß gewisse primitive Stämme sehr zur Furcht vor den Naturphänomenen neigen. – Es ist aber nicht ausgeschlossen daß hochzivilisierte Völker wieder zu eben dieser Furcht neigen werden & ihre Zivilisation & die wissenschaftliche Kenntnis wird // sie nicht davor schützen. Freilich ist es wahr, daß der Geist in dem die Wissenschaft heute betrieben wird mit einer solchen Furcht nicht vereinbar ist) ○/ Wenn Renan vom bon sens précoce30 der semitischen Rassen spricht (eine Idee die mir vor langer Zeit schon vorgeschwebt ist //) so ist das das Undichterische, unmittelbar auf’s Konkrete gehende. Das was meine Philosophie charakterisiert . Die Dinge liegen unmittelbar da vor unsern Augen //, kein Schleier über ihnen. – Hier trennen sich Religion & Kunst.

Von ganz besonderer Bedeutung ist dabei die Tatsache, dass Wittgenstein eigens diese drei Sektionen, nämlich MS 109: 200/2 und MS 109: 201/1 und MS 109: 201/2, in die Kringel-Buch-Auswahl aufgenommen hat, die thematisch unbedingt mit seinen „Bemerkungen zu Frazers Golden Bough“ zusammenzufassen sind. Diesen Zusammenhang hat Peter Hacker in seinem Aufsatz „Developmental Hypotheses and Perspicuous Representations: Wittgenstein on Frazer’s Golden Bough“ (1992) präzise gesehen und beschrieben. „Frazer, like Renan, whose work inspired The Golden Bough, thought that primitive man was impressed by the forces of nature because he could not explain them.“31 Dass Wittgenstein selbst seine Bemerkungen über Frazer und über Renan in der Kringel-Buch-Sammlung kombiniert hat,

30 Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 42: „Une sorte de bon sens précoce préserva cette race des chimères où d’autres familles humaines trouvèrent tantôt leur grandeur, tantôt leur anéantissement.“ 31 Hacker 2001: 93.

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

kann für Hacker als Bestätigung „aus erster Hand“ gewertet werden. In der postumen Veröffentlichung von Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ sind die relevanten32 Bemerkungen zu Renan überhaupt nicht berücksichtigt. Beachtenswert ist weiterhin, dass die Renans Werk Histoire du Peuple d’Israël betreffenden Sektionen vor dem Beginn von Wittgensteins Beschäftigung mit Frazers The Golden Bough entstanden sind. Dies wiederum zeigt, dass die der Frazer-Lektüre (des ersten von zwölf Bänden) vorangehende Renan-Lektüre (des ersten von fünf Bänden) als Initialzündung für Wittgensteins intensive, grundlegende Beschäftigung mit dieser Thematik anzusehen ist. Alsdann folgt in dieser Sektion, MS 109: 200/2, ein Zitat aus dem dritten Kapitel des ersten Buches im ersten Band dieses Werkes von Renan, das hier in deutscher Übersetzung wiedergegeben wird: „Die Geburt, die Krankheit und der Tod, die Fieberphantasien, die Katalepsie, der Schlaf und die Träume wirkten übermächtig, und heute noch ist es nur einer ganz kleinen Menschenzahl beschieden, deutlich zu sehen, dass die Ursachen aller dieser Phänomene in unserem eigenen Organismus liegen.“33 Den Menschen sind diese Dinge alltäglich. Und so ist es nach Wittgenstein keine Besonderheit, dass sie diese Dinge bemerkten, sondern dass sie anfingen, sich über sie zu wundern, über sie zu staunen. Dieses Wundern und Staunen hat nun gerade nichts mit Primitivität zu tun. Es sei denn daß man es primitiv nennt sich nicht über die Dinge zu wundern, dann aber sind gerade die heutigen Menschen & Renan primitiv wenn er glaubt die Erklärung der Wissenschaft könnte das Staunen heben. Als ob der Blitz heute alltäglicher oder weniger staunenswert wäre als vor 2000 Jahren. Zum Staunen muß der Mensch – und vielleicht Völker – aufwachen. Die Wissenschaft ist ein Mittel um ihn wieder einzuschläfern.

Mit der diese Sektion beendenden Subsektion kommt bereits jene Zivilisationsund Wissenschaftskritik zum Ausdruck, welche Wittgenstein dann einen Tag später – also am 6.11.1930 in MS 109: 207/1ff. – im Vorworttextekorpus „Zu einem Vorwort“, das ja wiederum Grundlage für die Sektionenauswahl des KringelBuches war, pointiert ausführt. Die folgende Sektion, MS 109: 201/1, setzt nach,

32 Neben den drei hier besprochenen Bemerkungen Wittgensteins über Renan findet sich eine weitere, thematisch anders gelagerte Bemerkung über Renan erst wieder zwanzig Jahre später in MS 176: 32r, welche am 31.3.1951 eingetragen wurde. 33 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 54. Renan 1923, Bd 1: 28. Das Zitat in englischer Übersetzung findet sich mit Quellenangabe bei Hacker 2001: 93, Anm. 6. Hacker macht dort (93, Anm. 5) darauf aufmerksam, dass Frazer auch Renans Drama Le Prêtre de Nemi (1886) kannte. Es wäre zu prüfen, ob auch Wittgenstein Renans Le Prêtre de Nemi, das den Untertitel Drame Philosophique trägt, gekannt hat.



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indem sie feststellt, dass es falsch ist zu sagen, „diese primitiven Völker mußten alle Phänomene anstaunen“ bzw. „[d]aß sie sie anstaunen mussten ist ein primitiver Aberglaube“, denn die Erfahrung lehrt lediglich, dass „gewisse primitive Stämme sehr zur Furcht vor den Naturphänomenen neigen“. Mit dem positiven Hervorheben des Staunens der Menschen fokussiert Wittgenstein auf eine elementare Dimension von Philosophie – eine Dimension, die seit der Antike als ursprünglich und höchst bedeutend angesehen wurde. Friedo Ricken hat dazu – in der Verbindung von Platon und Wittgenstein – folgende treffende Ausführung gemacht: In Platons Theaitet (155bd) findet sich eine vielzitierte Stelle über den Ursprung der Philosophie. Der junge Theaitet ist mit einem Widerspruch konfrontiert worden, und er reagiert mit dem Ausdruck eines außergewöhnlichen Staunens. „Bei den Göttern, Sokrates, ich staune über die Maßen, wie das denn eigentlich ist, und manchmal wird mir geradezu schwindelig, wenn ich es betrachte.“ Sokrates sieht in dieser Reaktion ein Zeichen für die philosophische Begabung des Theaitet: „Denn gerade das ist das eigentliche Erlebnis des Philosophen, das Staunen; ja es gibt keinen anderen Anfang der Philosophie als diesen.“ Für Wittgenstein zeichnet das Erlebnis des Staunens nicht nur den Philosophen, sondern den Menschen als solchen aus. In einer Aufzeichnung von 1930, die sich mit dem französischen Religionswissenschaftler Ernest Renan (1823–1892) auseinandersetzt, heißt es, daß der primitive Mensch sich dadurch vom Hund oder Affen unterscheidet, daß er zum Staunen über die alltäglichen Dinge aufgewacht ist. Die Menschen beginnen auf einmal, über Dinge, die sie schon lange wahrgenommen haben, z.B., den Blitz, zu staunen. […] In den Bemerkungen zu Frazer ist nicht die Rede vom Staunen, sondern davon, daß die Dinge dem Menschen geheimnisvoll werden. […] Die rituelle Handlung drückt das Geheimnisvolle aus. […]34

8 W  ittgensteins kritische Lektüre von Ernest Renans Histoire du Peuple d’Israël Es ist erforderlich, den originalen Kontext, aus welchem Wittgensteins RenanReferenz stammt, genauer anzusehen und ausführlicher darzustellen, um so Einblicke auch in die Grundlagen und Voraussetzungen der Äußerungen Wittgensteins dazu zu gewinnen. Bei der Lektüre des weiteren Kontextes des von Wittgenstein dem dritten Kapitel des ersten Teils im ersten Band des Werkes Histoire du Peuple d’Israël35 mit der Überschrift „Religiöser Beruf der semitischen Nomaden“ entnommenen Zitates kommt nämlich zum Vorschein, dass Wittgen-

34 Ricken 2003: 53. 35 Hier wird die autorisierte deutsche Ausgabe Geschichte des Volkes Israel von 1894 zitiert.

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stein mit seinen Renan-Bemerkungen implizit auch auf dort von Renan veranschlagte Prämissen rekurriert. Gleich zu Beginn des Vorwortes zu diesem Werk und zu diesem ersten Band verkündet Renan: Für einen Philosophen, das heisst für jeden Geist, der nach dem Ursprung der Dinge zu suchen gewöhnt ist, gibt es eigentlich nur drei Geschichtsperioden von hervorragender Bedeutung in der Vergangenheit des Menschen-Geschlechtes. Es sind dies die griechische, römische und israelitische Geschichte, deren Vereinigung das bildet, was man die Geschichte der Civilisation nennen kann, weil die Civilisation nur das Resultat der abwechselnden Mitarbeit Griechenlands, Judäas und des Römertums ist. Nach meiner Meinung spielt Griechenland dabei eine aussergewöhnlich wichtige Rolle, da es den rationellen und fortschreitenden Humanismus in des Wortes vollster Bedeutung begründet hat. Unsere Wissenschaft und unsere Kunst, unsere Philosophie und Sittlichkeitslehre, unsere Politik, unsere Strategie und Diplomatie sind griechischer Abstammung, so gut wie unser internationales und unser Seerecht. Der Rahmen der menschlichen Kultur, den Griechenland geschaffen hat, ist wohl einer unbestimmten Ausdehnung fähig, doch seine Teile sind bereits vollzählig, und der Fortschritt wird immer nur in der Entwicklung dessen bestehen, was Griechenland ersonnen, sozusagen in der Ausführung der Absichten, die es so trefflich vorgezeichnet hat. In dem Kreis der geistigen und sittlichen Thätigkeit Griechenlands befand sich allerdings eine recht bedeutende Lücke, da es die Demütigung verachtete und kein Bedürfnis nach einem gerechten Gotte empfand. Griechische Philosophen waren nachsichtig gegen die Schlechtigkeiten dieser Welt, trotzdem sie von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele träumten, griechische Religionen blieben reizende Kinderspielereien, zu Nutz und Frommen verschiedener Städtegemeinden; doch der Gedanke an eine allgemeine Religion blieb Griechenland fremd. Der leidenschaftliche Genius der kleinen Völkerschaft, die in einem verlorenen Winkel Syriens lebte, schien wie geschaffen, um diesem Mangel des griechischen Geistes abzuhelfen. Israel konnte sich niemals mit der Thatsache abfinden, dass die Welt schlecht durch einen Gott regiert sein könne, der für gerecht gelten soll. Israels Weisen wurden von Zorn ergriffen beim Anblick der Missbräuche, die hienieden wimmeln. Ein schlechter Mensch, der in hohem Alter ruhig und reich sterben durfte, erfüllte ihre Herzen mit Erzürnung.36

Dieser Gegensatz, diese Ergänzung, diese Korrelation zwischen Griechenland und Israel ist also nach Renan in der Menschheitsentwicklung allgemein und für die Ausbildung und Entfaltung der westlichen Zivilisation insbesondere von grundlegender Bedeutung. Gleich im ersten Kapitel seines ersten Bandes führt Ernest Renan dann auch die Unterscheidung zwischen „Ariern“ (les Aryens) und „Semiten“ (les Sémites) ein:

36 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 1–2. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: I–III.



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Ungefähr zweitausend Jahre vor Jesu Christo macht sich ein neues Element in der Weltgeschichte bemerkbar, indem die Anwesenheit der Arier und der Semiten fühlbar wird. Anstatt sich gruppenweise zu civilisieren, ging die Entwicklung dieser beiden Rassen, wie es scheint, von dem Gedanken aus, der den Einzelnen seine Rechte gegen die Umgebung verteidigen lässt.37

Von Bedeutung ist jedoch, dass Renan dabei die Begriffe der Rassen nicht in einem biologisch-deterministischen Sinn verwendet. Er veranschlagt die Entwicklungsfähigkeit und den Fortschritt der Menschheit und geht davon aus, dass die Weiterentwicklung der Menschheit gerade auf ihrem Zusammenwachsen beruht. Seine Differenzierung in „arisch“ und „semitisch“ wird mit der Verschiedenheit der Bräuche, der Sitten, der Religion, der Mythen, der Gesellschaftsordnung, der Gesetzgebung und – in allererster Linie – der Sprache begründet: In der That musste die Sprache, als obligater Gedankenausdruck jeder einzelnen Rasse, die das Geschlecht, das in ihren Gebrauch Jahrhunderte lang sich einschloss, zu einer Art von Schale, oder besser: Corset werden, das es noch viel enger zusammenhielt, als Religion, Gesetzgebung, Sitten und Gebräuche. Ohne die gesellschaftlichen Einrichtungen bedeutet die Rasse nur wenig. Diese sind wie die Reifen einer Tonne, welche allein die innere Einnahmefähigkeit des Gefässes dauerhaft machen. Da die Sprache aber unter allen Einrichtungen unzweifelhaft die grösste Lebensfähigkeit besitzt, so verdrängte sie nach und nach fast vollständig die Rassenfragen, als es sich um die Trennung der menschlichen Gruppen handelte; oder vielmehr das Wort „Rasse“ verändert seinen Sinn: die Sprache, die Religion, die Sitten und Gesetze machten sie nun viel eher aus, als das Blut; […].38

Zur genaueren und differenzierenden Bestimmung der beiden „Rassen“ hebt Renan alsdann einige Merkmale besonders hervor, indem er nicht nur den „Ariern“ Monogamie und Polytheismus und den „Semiten“ Polygamie und Monotheismus als Charakteristika zuspricht, sondern auch gravierende Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Sprachen konstatiert: Am allerersten aber zeigt sich die Verschiedenheit der beiden Rassen in der Sprache. Ungeachtet eines gewissen verwandtschaftlichen Klanges bilden die beiden Sprachen förmlich

37 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 35. Original: Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 6. Über die Ursprünge bzw. Zentren dieser beiden Rassen schreibt Renan detaillierter: „Der Centralpunkt der arischen Rasse [la race aryenne] befand sich, einige 2000 Jahre vor Christo, in dem alten Arien [l’Arie antique] (heutigen Afghanistan). Von dort breiteten sich Nebenzweige nach Westen und Norden, um später zu Celten und Scythen (Germanen und Slaven) und zu Pelasgern (Griechen und Italioten) zu werden. Der Kern der semitischen Rasse [la race sémitique] scheint zur gleichen Zeit in Arabien [l’Arabie] gelegen zu haben“. (Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 38. Original: Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 9) 38 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 32–33. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 3.

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den Widerspruch zu einander. Die arische besass manchen Vorzug, namentlich in allem, was mit der Konjugation des Verbums zusammenhängt. Sie war ein wunderbares Instrument, das schon damals – obgleich durch den Instinkt primitiver Menschen kaum erschaffen – bereits die ganze Metaphysik im Keime enthielt, die später durch den indischen [génie hindou], griechischen [génie grec] und deutschen [génie allemand] Genius entwickelt werden sollte. Die semitische Sprache dagegen schlug von Anfang an in Bezug auf die Zeitwörter einen falschen Weg ein. Der grösste, weil unverbesserliche Fehler, den diese Rasse jemals begangen hat, lag in der Behandlung des Verbums, dass der Zeitausdruck stets unsicher und beschwerlich bleiben musste.39

Was Renan ausschließlich als positiv (ja mit positivistischem Duktus) veranschlagt, was man als griechisch-römische Kulturentwicklung ansprechen kann, betrachtet Wittgenstein teilweise mit Skepsis und sieht auch negative Eigenschaften der westlichen Zivilisation bzw. in der Entwicklung des „rationellen und fortschreitenden Humanismus“, wie Renan im Vorwort sich ausdrückt. So beinhaltet die bereits zu Anfang in Potentialität enthaltene und im Laufe der Zeit entfaltete westliche Philosopie auch Schattenseiten, die selbst wieder insbesondere in der Sprachstruktur verankert sind. „Seins-Philosophie“ und „Substanz-Metaphysik“, wie sie über weite Strecken darin vorhanden sind, beruhen etwa auf der – von Renan so hoch gelobten und nach Wittgensteins Ansicht zu Unrecht gegen die semitische Sprache ausgespielten – Verwendung des Verbums und seiner Konjugation. Für eines der wichtigen Exempel bei Wittgenstein dazu, nämlich die Verwendung des Verbums „ist“ als Gleichheitszeichen einerseits und als Existenzquantor andererseits, findet sich sogar im Kringel-Buch die Sektion MS 110: 83/6: „Könnten wir für ‚blau‘, ‚rot‘, ‚grün‘, ‚gelb‘ dasselbe Wort verwenden, wie wir es für ‚=‘ und ‚ε‘ tun, wenn auch mit der Gefahr der Verwechslung, aber doch der Möglichkeit zu unterscheiden?“40 Wittgensteins Behandlung der Augustini-

39 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 37–38. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 9. 40 Im gesamten Nachlass finden sich viele weitere Beispiele für ebendiesen Sachverhalt. Hier nur einige markante Stellen: MS 107: 210 = TS 208 = TS 209: 39; MS 108: 150 = TS 210:11; MS 115ii: 282; MS 116: 134; MS 132: 124 = MS 144: 33; MS 134: 128; MS 138: 21a = MS 144: 93; MS 165: 52. Siehe dazu auch die zitierte Sektion in MS 110: 83/6, denn die dort vorangehende Sektion bietet einen klaren Kontext: „Das Wort ‚ist‘ in dem Satz ‚der Himmel ist blau‘ ist dasselbe wie das in dem Satz ‚die Rose ist rot‘, aber nicht dasselbe wie das ‚ist‘ in ‚2 × 2 ist 4‘“. Wenn ich das sagen kann, so heißt das schon, daß ich die Worte nicht nach dem Klang allein unterscheide, oder identifiziere. Und doch muß ich sie wieder erkennen, denn nur ihre Gemeinsamkeit drückt ja eine Gemeinsamkeit des Sinnes aus.“ Dieses Beispiel zeigt, wie wichtig es für die Interpretationsarbeit bei transferierten Wittgensteinschen Bemerkungen sein kann, den ursprünglichen Manuskriptkontext bzw. die vorhergehenden Kontexte in Manuskripten und Typoskripten aufzusuchen und zu studieren.



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schen Frage nach der Zeit ist ebenfalls ein eindrückliches Exempel dafür, da es auch die durch die Konjugation von Verben entstehende philosophische Konfusion demonstriert: „| Das Rätselhafte am Kontinuum ist wie das Rätselhafte der Zeit für Augustinus dadurch bedingt daß uns die wir durch die Sprache verleitet werden ein Bild auf sie anzuwenden das nicht passt. […]. |“ (MS 113: 27v) Die semitische Kultur bildet für Wittgenstein – dies ist der Punkt, den es zu betonen und zu entfalten gilt – ein heilsames Gegengewicht zur westlichen Tradition bzw. zur „europäischen & amerikanischen Zivilisation“. Und dabei hat er sich auch von den von Renan angesprochenen und aufgezeigten unterschiedlichen Kulturverläufen – „Die wandernden Semiten haben für die Religion dasselbe gethan, was Griechenland für die geistige Kultur und Rom für die Politik thaten. […] Thatsächlich ist der fiktive Ahnherr dieser Stämme, Abraham, der religiöse Vater aller Völker gewesen.“41 – anregen lassen, ohne jene wissenschaftlich-positivistisch ausgerichtete Sicht- und Interpretationsweise von Renan – wie etwa dessen Ansicht über das Leben, Verhalten und Denken von „primitiven Völkern“ – unkritisiert stehen zu lassen. In MS 109: 201/1 findet sich die thematische Weiterführung über das Wundern und Staunen sowohl von sog. primitiven als auch von sog. zivilisierten Menschen und Völkern. Wittgenstein hält Renan entgegen, dass es ein „primitiver Aberglaube“ ist zu vertreten, dass die primitiven Völker alle Phänomene und Dinge „anstaunen mußten“, ja sich „vor allen Naturkräften fürchten mußten“ und dass die zivilisierten Völker, also wir mit unseren wissenschaftlichen Kenntnissen, die Phänomene und Dinge nicht (mehr) anstaunen müssen und uns nicht (mehr) fürchten müssen. Von „sich wundern müssen“, „staunen müssen“ und „sich fürchten müssen“ kann bei den primitiven Menschen nach Wittgenstein überhaupt keine Rede sein; lediglich ein Konstatieren des Faktums, dass diese Menschen „sich wunderten“, „staunten“ und „sich fürchteten“ ist möglich und angebracht. Hochzivilisierte heutige und kommende Menschen können aber, so Wittgenstein pointiert, wieder zum „Wundern“, zum „Staunen“ und zum „Fürchten“ zurückkehren, ohne dass Zivilisation und Wissenschaft dies verhindern könnten. Dann macht Wittgenstein aber noch den einschränkenden Zusatz: „Freilich ist es wahr, daß der Geist in dem die Wissenschaft heute betrieben wird mit einer solchen Furcht nicht vereinbar ist.“ In MS 109: 201/1 findet ein unvermittelter Übergang vom Wundern und Staunen zum Fürchten statt. Lokalisiert und studiert man das dazu von Renan selbst Gesagte, so wird dieser Übergang verständlich, denn unmittelbar an jenes Zitat, welches Wittgenstein in MS 109: 200/2 aus Renans Werk entnommen hat, schließen sich jene Ausführungen an,

41 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 52. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 26.

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auf welche Wittgenstein alsdann rekurriert, ohne sie zu zitieren oder zu referieren. Nach Wittgensteins Zitat geht Renans Text folgendermaßen weiter: Die verschiedenartigen Begebenheiten des Menschenlebens veranlassten noch falschere Urteile. Die Unfälle, das Gelingen und der Verlust, die Kinderlosigkeit und der Kindersegen, der Reichtum, der Sieg, der Einfluss und die Macht wurden als Gnadenzeichen oder Zornbeweise betrachtet, die dem Menschen von höheren Wesen gesendet wurden, von Wesen, die mehr oder weniger geneigt waren, sich anrufen und beschwören zu lassen. Ein irrsinniges Entsetzen und eine ewige Sinnverwirrung waren notwendige Folgen einer so verkehrten Naturbetrachtung. P r i m u s i n o r b e d e o s f e c i t t i m o r ist ein wundervoll wahrer Ausdruck. Der Mensch glaubte sich von Feinden umringt und suchte sie nach Kräften zu besänftigen. Da die Erziehung seiner Sinne kaum vollendet war, so wurde er zum Spielball fortwährender Hallucinationen.42

Wittgenstein würde nicht die Meinung vertreten, dass die damals lebenden Menschen zwangsläufig diese Einstellungen haben mussten bzw. in allen Lebensbereichen ausschließlich diese Einstellungen hatten; er würde solche Einstellungen nicht als „notwendige Folge einer […] verkehrten Naturbetrachtung“ werten; er würde bestreiten, dass diese Menschen „Spielball fortwährender Hallucinationen“ waren. Wohl aber würde er betonen, dass bei den so konstatierten und erklärten Einstellungen bereits „hypothetische“ und „metaphysische“ Konstrukte eingebracht sind, dass es sich nicht mehr nur um Beschreibungen menschlicher Verhaltensweisen handelt, sondern bereits Erklärungen dieser bzw. für diese Verhaltensweisen mitgeliefert werden. Gegenüber dem Wundern und Staunen, das Wittgenstein MS 109: 200/2 und MS 109: 201/1 ausschließlich positiv sieht und darstellt („Zum Staunen muß der Mensch – und vielleicht Völker – aufwachen. Die Wissenschaft ist das Mittel um sie wieder einzuschläfern“), ist auffallend, dass er das erst in MS 109: 201/1 hinzukommende Fürchten keinesfalls positiv veranschlagt („daß gewisse primitive Stämme sehr zur Furcht vor den Naturphänomenen neigen“ und „daß hochzivilisierte Völker wieder zu eben dieser Furcht neigen werden & die Zivilisation & die wissenschaftliche Kenntnis wird // sie nicht davor schützen“). Wittgensteins Argumentation ist – so der hier eingebrachte Differenzierungsversuch – gegenläufig angelegt: Wissenschaft, besser: positivistisch falsch verstandene Wissenschaft, kann das Wundern und Staunen des Menschen behindern, aber das Fürchten nicht verhindern; Wissenschaft ist nicht das einzig gültige, ja nicht einmal das adäquateste Instrument, menschliches Leben existenziell zu bewältigen, kreativ und sinnvoll zu gestalten. Aber

42 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 54. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 28–29.



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auch Religion und Philosophie können fördernden, positiven oder hinternden, negativen Einfluss auf die Gestaltung menschlichen Lebens nehmen. Dazu ist die letzte der drei expliziten Renan-Bemerkungen, MS 109: 201/2, ganz besonders relevant.

9 W  ittgensteins große Affinität zu Renans ­Stellungnahme „bon sense précoce“ In ebendieser Sektion MS 109: 201/2 stellt sich Wittgenstein, der ja in den ersten beiden Sektionen Renan kritisiert hatte, bezüglich dessen Statements über den „bon sense précoce der semitischen Rasse“ ausdrücklich an die Seite von Renan. Und wiederum ist die Grundlage für ein adäquates Verständnis das Studium des entsprechenden Textes, „[w]enn Renan vom bon sense précoce der semitischen Rasse“ spricht, welcher sich ebenfalls im dritten Kapitel des ersten Teils im ersten Band der Geschichte des Volkes Israel befindet. Nachdem Renan sich über das Vorhandensein von Polytheismus bei der „arischen Rasse“ (la race aryenne) und von Monotheismus bei der „semitischen Rasse“ (la race sémitique) geäußert hat, macht er drei markante Aussagen. Zum Ersten: „Die arische Rasse zeigte in religiöser Beziehung nichts von der Superiorität, die sie später auf anderen Gebieten offenbaren sollte.“43 Zum Zweiten: „Der Semit dagegen besass seit der frühesten Zeit gesunde Theorien.“44 Zum Dritten: „Die semitische Theologie ist freilich noch weit entfernt von jener, die durch die positive Wissenschaft triumphieren sollte.“45 Zwei – gerade zum Verstehen von Wittgensteins dritter RenanBemerkung – zentrale Positionen werden dabei angesprochen: Einerseits die Auffassung Renans, dass die arische Kultur, konkret Griechenland, eine bedeutende Lücke hatte, welche durch die semitische Kultur, konkret Israel, ausgeglichen und behoben werden konnte. Andererseits die Auffassung Renans, dass die Wissenschaft eine der Mythologie nachfolgende zweite Entwicklungsphase der Menschheit ist. Beide Auffassungen Renans und ihre Rezeption durch Wittgenstein bedürfen der näheren Erörterung. Während in der griechischen Kulturentwicklung der Schwerpunkt auf Philosophie und Kunst liegt, basiert die israelitische Kulturentwickung auf der Ausbildung einer monotheistischen Religion. Bei aller Hochschätzung der grie-

43 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 64. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 40. 44 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 65. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 42. 45 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 64. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 40.

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chischen Tradition spricht Renan auch der semitischen Tradition seine Hochschätzung aus, nämlich: „Eine Art frühreifen gesunden Verstandes [bon sense précoce] schützte die semitische Rasse vor den Chimären, welche andere Menschenfamilien zuweilen wohl zur Grösse führten, zuweilen aber auch zur völligen Vernichtung.“46 Auf diese Stelle bezieht sich Wittgensteins Sektion MS 109: 201/2. Erst in diesem Kontext kann man Wittgensteins Bemerkung angemessen würdigen, denn erst darin wird verständlich, was mit dem „bon sense précoce“ gemeint ist. Obwohl Idee und Wortwahl des „bon sens précoce der semitischen Rasse“ von Renan stammt, sagt Wittgenstein, dass ihm diese Idee „vor langer Zeit schon vorgeschwebt ist //“. Dieser „bon sens précoce“ bezeichnet, so Wittgensteins Selbstauskunft, seine Philosophie als „unmittelbar auf’s Konkrete gehende“. Und in einer zusätzlichen Subsektion heißt es: „Die Dinge liegen unmittelbar vor unsern Augen //, kein Schleier über ihnen. – Hier trennen sich Religion & Kunst.“ Dass Wittgenstein dabei auf das „Hohelied“ im ersten Brief an die Korinther anspielt, wäre denkbar. Bei Paulus lautet die relevante Stelle nämlich: „Jetzt schauen wir in einen Spiegel und sehen nur rätselhafte Umrisse, dann aber schauen wir von Angesicht zu Angesicht. Jetzt erkenne ich unvollkommen, dann aber werde ich durch und durch erkennen, so wie ich auch durch und durch erkannt worden bin.“47 Dabei taucht dann allerdings die Frage auf, was denn nun – entsprechend der Aussage in dieser Sektion – „die Dinge“ sind, welche „unmittelbar da[liegen] vor unsern Augen //, kein Schleier über ihnen“. Und wie genau trennen sich hier „Religion & Kunst“? Sind die Dinge unmittelbar vor uns auf die Religion zu beziehen oder auf die Kunst? Man könnte spontan an die Dinge der Kunst denken, die sinnlich wahrnehmbar „unmittelbar vor uns“ liegen. Die Dinge der Religion wären dann, auch in einem Sinne des Paulus-Zitates, nicht unmittelbar vor uns. Man kann aber auch, und dies dürfte Wittgensteins Intention eher treffen, die Dinge der Religion als unmittelbar vor uns liegend veranschlagen. Religion nicht als das „Dichterische“ im Sinne von Erdichtung

46 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 66. Renan 1923, Bd. 1: 42. 47 1 Kor 12,13. Im Jahre 1931 verbrachte Wittgenstein zusammen mit Marguerite Respinger einen Urlaub in Skjolden in Norwegen. In ihrer Autobiographie Granny et son temps (1982) berichtet Frau Respinger darüber auch folgende Begebenheit: „Du petit hôtel du village, un pêcheur porta mes valises à dos de mulet jusqu’à la ferme et Ludwig m’abandonna à mon sort. En ouvrant mon sac, je trouvai la Bible qu’il y avait glissée avec un billet, au trezième chapitre de la première épitre aux Corinthiens.“ (115) Im Interview mit Frau Marguerite de Chambrier (geb. Respinger) „Ludwig Wittgenstein war ein ‚Stern’ in meinem Leben“ (Rothhaupt/Seery 2001: 137) wird dieser Text in deutscher Übersetzung wiedergegeben. Siehe zum „Hohelied“ bei Paulus auch Wittgensteins Eintrag in MS 183: 124 vom 7.11.1931: „Wenn ich an meine Beichte denke, so verstehe ich das Wort ‘ … & hätte der Liebe nicht u.s.w.’ […]“.



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– etwa als Theologie, als Theorie, als Hypothese, als Wissenschaft – verstanden, sondern als die elementaren Erfahrens-, Verhaltens- und Verstehensweisen von Menschen, als das „Undichterische, unmittelbar auf’s Konkrete gehende“. Die Dinge der Kunst sind dann entsprechend das „Dichterische“. – „Hier trennen sich Religion & Kunst.“ Für ebendiese Auffassung spricht gerade auch die Einbindung in den Zusammenhang von Wittgensteins Ansicht über den „bon sense précoce der semitischen Rasse“ und deren Applikation auch auf seine eigene Philosophie. Damit stehen für Wittgenstein Religion und Philosophie in enger Verwandtschaft; beide sind auf „das Undichterische, unmittelbar auf’s Konkrete gehende“ gerichtet bzw. basieren darauf.48 In dieser Hinsicht besteht alsdann keine Verwandtschaft bzw. eine weniger enge Beziehung zwischen Religion und Kunst. Für diese Position Wittgensteins lassen sich ebenfalls Wurzeln in Renans Geschichte des Volkes Israel aufzeigen. Wiederum im ersten Buch des ersten Bandes dieses Werkes heißt es im vierten Kapitel, welches den Titel „Monotheismus. Abwesenheit der Mythologie“ trägt, dazu in der bereits erwähnten Entgegensetzung zwischen polytheistisch arischer und monotheistisch semitischer Kultur49: Als einen charakteristischen Zug der [semitischen] Nomaden im allgemeinen muss man z.B. ihren geringen Geschmack für gemalte oder geschnitzte Abbildungen betrachten. Eine Nation, die fortwährend bildliche Darstellungen vor Augen hat, wird fast notwendigerweise zur Idolanbeterin. […] Noch mehr als der Geschmack für plastische Künste fehlt dem Semiten die Mythologie, die, ähnlich wie Malerei und Skulptur, die Mutter des Polytheismus ist. Das Grundprinzip der Mythologie liegt in der Belebung der Worte. Die semitischen Sprachen jedoch fügen sich solchen Personificierungen so gut wie gar nicht. Der Mangel an Phantasiereichtum und an Mannigfaltigkeit des Ausdrucks ist auch ein charakterischer Zug der semitisch sprechenden Völker. Für den Arier wurde jedes Wort zum Bilde und enthielt, wenn ich so sagen darf, seinen keimenden Mythos.

Die in Sprache angelegte Affinität zu Mythologie und zu Metaphysik, wie sie Renan in ausgeprägtem Maße für die griechische Kulturtradition konstatiert, sieht Wittgenstein auch heute noch am Werke. Für Wittgenstein bilden diese

48 Es wäre einer weiterführenden Erörterung wert, auszuloten, inwiefern die Philosophie Wittgensteins in einer anderen Hinsicht – etwa „die Darstellung der Philosophie“ betreffend – auch das „Dichterische“ enthält. In Manuskriptband MS 115(I): 30 (zuvor schon in MS 146: 50) hält Wittgenstein kurz nach dem 14.12.1933 Gedanken fest, die dazu besonders relevant sind: „(Die Darstellung der Philosophie kann nur gedichtet werden.) / (Philosophie dürfte man eigentlich nur dichten. Daraus muß sich, scheint mir, ergeben, wie weit mein Denken der Gegenwart, Zukunft oder der Vergangenheit angehört: Denn ich habe mich damit auch als einen bekannt, der nicht ganz kann, was er zu können wünscht.“ 49 Renan 1894, Bd. 1: 69–70.

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

Aussagen von Renan eine Bestätigung und Festigung jener Ansichten, die er sich – bereits vor der Abfassung seiner Logisch-Philosophischen Abhandlung – durch die Lektüre des Nachwortes zur dreibändigen Ausgabe Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm von Paul Ernst50 angeeignet hatte. Folgende Ausführung von Ernst in diesem „Nachwort“ kann dies demonstrieren: Nicht die Beobachtung entscheidet für den primitiven Menschen, vielleicht in höherem Grade, wie wir ahnen, auch für uns, sondern die logische Ableitung aus Wort und Begriff; mir ist diese merkwürdige Tatsache immer als das bedeutsamste Zeichen der menschlichen Würde erschienen, denn das Tier lebt gänzlich innerhalb der Welt, welche durch seine Sinne eingeht, der Mensch aber schafft sich schon auf so frühen Stufen seine eigene Welt, welche seiner äußeren Erfahrung gänzlich widerspricht, er beugt sich nicht und sagt: so ist die Erfahrung, sondern er befiehlt: so soll die Erfahrung sein; und gerade, weil er nun auf allerlei Wirrnis stieß, auf Unlösbares und Unsinniges, entwickelte er sich immer höher.51

Wittgenstein nimmt Bezug auf Paul Ernst und Ernest Renan wenn er in MS 110: 256/3 sagt: „Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen. Und der Ritus der alten Mythen war eine Sprache.“ Negiert oder vernachlässigt man diesen Sachverhalt, so kommt es zu philosophischen Problemen, zu Problemen die „auf dem Mißverständnis der Logik unserer Sprache“ beruhen – so schreibt er im Vorwort der Logisch-Philosophischen Abhandlung. Im Kringel-Buch greift er mit MS 110: 184/3 ebendiese Feststellung wieder auf: ○/` Wenn mein Buch je veröffentlicht wird so muß in seiner Vorrede der Vorrede Paul Ernst’s zu den Grimmschen Märchen gedacht werden, die ich schon in der Log. Phil. Abhandlung als Quelle des Ausdrucks „Mißverstehen der Sprachlogik“ hätte erwähnen müssen.

Jenes Nachwort von Paul Ernst, welches Wittgenstein versehentlich als Vorrede anspricht, und jene Ausführungen von Renan über die (auch) in einer Sprache mehr oder weniger ausgeprägt vorhandenen Tendenzen zu Mythologie und Metaphysik, waren für Wittgenstein wichtige Anregungen, sich mit dem „Mißverstehen der Sprachlogik“ – mit dem Zustandekommen aus Mangel an Übersichtlichkeit über die Grammatik einer alltäglichen Sprache ebenso wie mit der Behebung solchen Missverstehens durch die Erstellung einer übersichtlichen Darstellung – eingehender zu beschäftigen. Für Wittgenstein ist die Differenzierung in Jerusalem und Athen, in griechische Philosophie und Kunst und israelitische Religion recht bedeutsam. Eine ganze Reihe seiner Bemerkungen im Nachlass – sowohl philosophische Über-

50 Ernst 1910: 271–314. 51 Ernst 1910: 274–275.



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 57

legungen als auch persönliche Bekundungen – basieren auf dieser bzw. fokussieren auf diese Unterscheidung. Für das Jahr 1949 berichtet Maurice O’Connor Drury dazu eine bedeutende – bis jetzt aber keinesfalls ausgiebig gewürdigte und ausinterpretierte52 – Stellungnahme von Wittgenstein, nämlich53: I told Wittgenstein I was reading some of the early Church Fathers, at the moment Tertullian. Wittgenstein: I am glad you are doing that. You should continue to do so. Drury: I had been reading Origen before. Origen taught that at the end of time there would be a final restitution of all things. That even Satan and the fallen angles would be restored to their former glory. This was a conception that appealed to me – but it was at once condemned as heretical. Wittgenstein: Of course it was rejected. It would make nonsense of everything else. If what we do now is to make no difference in the end, then all the seriousness of life is done away with. Your religious ideas have always seemed to me more Greek than biblical. Whereas my thoughts are one hundred per cent Hebraic. Drury: Yes I do feel that, when, say Plato talks about the gods, it lacks that sense of awe which you feel throughout the Bible – from the Genesis to Revelation.54 „But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth?“ Wittgenstein: [standing still and looking at me very intently] I think you have just said something very important. Much more important than you realize.

10 E  ditionsgeschichte „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ – Editionsteil I Die „Bemerkungen über Frazers The Golden Bough“ (Teil I und Teil II) von Ludwig Wittgenstein wurden postum von Rush Rhees aus Wittgensteins Nachlass selektiert, zusammengestellt und veröffentlicht. Die Erstveröffentlichung fand im Jahre

52 Als vorbildliche Ausnahme ist hier Bremer 2013 anzuführen. 53 Drury 1984: 161. 54 An dieser Stelle seines Berichtes „Conversations with Wittgenstein“ hat Drury folgenden Zusatz gemacht: „Now that Simone Weil has taught me how to understand Plato, I would bite my tongue out rather than make such a remark.“ Und das folgende Zitat stammt aus dem letzten Buch des Alten/Ersten Testaments der Bibel, Maleachi 3,2.

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1967 in der philosophischen Fachzeitschrift Synthese55 statt. Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen wurden dabei in zwei separierten Editionsteilen in deutscher Originalsprache mit einer englischsprachigen „Introductory Note“ gedruckt und vom Herausgeber mit relevanten englischsprachigen Zitaten aus der einbändigen Ausgabe von James George Frazers The Golden Bough56 präsentiert. In dieser „Introductory Note“ konstatiert Rhees zur Philologie der Frazer-Bemerkungen: Wittgenstein began writing on Frazer in his manuscript book on June 19th, 1931, and he added remarks during the next two or three weeks – although he was writing more about other things (such as Verstehen eines Satzes, Bedeutung, Komplex und Tatsache, Intention …). He may have made earlier notes in a pocket notebook, but I have found none.

Wittgenstein hat tatsächlich am 19. Juni 1931 begonnen, ab Manuskript MS 110: 177 bzw. MS 110: 178 eigene Bemerkungen über Frazer einzutragen. Bezüglich der Dauer und des Umfangs der Eintragung von Frazer-Bemerkungen in MS 110 lassen sich aber genauere Angaben machen, nämlich: Im Juni 1931, konkret am 19., 20., 22., 23., 25. und im Juli, konkret am 1., 2., 6. werden von ihm die FrazerBemerkungen (wie sie sich im Teil I der postumen Publikation befinden) verfasst.57 Weiter heißt es in den „Introductory Notes“ von Rhees: It was probably in 1931 that he dictated a typist the greater part of the manuscript books written since July 1930; often changing the order of remarks, and details of the phrasing, but leaving large blocks as they stood. (He rearranged the material again and again later on.) This particular typescript runs to 771 pages. It has a section, just under 10 pages long, of the remarks on Frazer, with a few changes in order and phrasing. Others are in different contexts, and a few are left out.58

Definitiv erst nach Mitte September 1931 konnten die Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211 (Seiten 313–322) getippt worden sein, denn TS 211 enthält zu Beginn (Seiten 1–118 und Seiten 124–127) die Bemerkungsauswahl aus dem Manuskriptband MS 111 (Seiten 1–192) und erst dann schließt sich die Bemerkungsauswahl aus Manuskriptband MS 110 (Seiten 1–300) – und also auch der eigene Teil mit den Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211 (Seiten 313–322) aus dem Manuskriptband MS 110 (Seiten 58, 178–184, 195–199, 204–205, 225, 256–257) – an. Da als letztes Datum in MS 111: 166 der 13. September 1931 zu finden ist, kann die Auswahl von Bemer-

55 Synthese-Edition. Wittgenstein 1967. 56 Frazer 1922. 57 19.6.1931 = So; 20.6. = Mo; 22.6. = Mi; 23.6. = Do; 25.6. = Sa; 1.7. = Sa; 2.7. = So; 6.7.1931 = Do. 58 Synthese-Edition. Wittgenstein 1967: 233.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 59

kungen aus MS 110 in TS 211 – also auch der Teil mit den Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211 – erst ab Mitte September 1931 entstanden sein. Rhees äußert sich dann in den „Introductory Notes“ weiter über den philologischen Befund der FrazerBemerkungen in TS 211: 313–322: The typed section on Frazer begins with three remarks which are not connected with them in the manuscript. He had begun there with remarks which he later marked S (=‚schlecht‘) and did not have typed. I think we can see why. The earlier version was: „Ich glaube jetzt, daß es richtig wäre, mein Buch mit Bemerkungen über die Metaphysik als eine Art von Magie zu beginnen. Worin ich aber weder der Magie das Wort reden noch mich über sie lustig machen darf. Von der Magie müßte die Tiefe behalten werden. – Ja, das Ausschalten der Magie hat hier den Charakter der Magie selbst. Denn, wenn ich damals anfing von der ‚Welt‘ zu reden (und nicht von diesem Baum oder Tisch), was wollte ich anderes als etwas Höheres in meine Worte bannen.“59

Diese Passage ist nur sehr schwer verständlich oder gar missverständlich formuliert. Fünf Sektionen, die als Anfang der Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough in MS 110 zu werten sind (Seiten 177–178), wurden von Wittgenstein dort jeweils mit der Sektionsmarkierung „∫“ versehen und nicht in TS 211 transferiert. Diese fünf Sektionen werden als Beginn der „earlier version“ (in MS 110 nämlich) in der Synthese-Edition von Rhees in seiner „Introductory Note“60 wiedergegeben. Zu erwähnen ist hier allerdings, dass die Sektionsmarkierung „S“ – exakter transkribiert mit „∫“ – für Wittgenstein einerseits nicht nur „schwach“, sondern auch „schlecht“ oder „schwafelnd“ bedeuten kann und andererseits offen ist bzw. jeweils entschieden werden muss, ob sich diese Bewertung auf den Inhalt, den Gehalt und/oder die Form, die Gestalt, den Stil einer Sektion bezieht. Gerade bei diesen fünf Bemerkungen zu Beginn der Frazer-Aufzeichnungen in MS 110: 177–178 ist diese differenzierende Erwähnung sinnvoll und beachtenswert. Von Bedeutung sind insbesondere dann auch die Bezugnahmen Wittgensteins auf sein Buch in zweifacher Art und Weise, einerseits auf ein aktuell, also 1931, zu schreibendes Buch, beginnend mit „Bemerkungen über die Metaphysik“, und

59 Synthese-Edition. Wittgenstein 1967: 233–234. 60 Synthese-Edition. Wittgenstein 1967: 233–234.

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

andererseits auf die Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung mit der Formulierung „damals anfing von der ‚Welt‘ zu reden“.

11 W  ittgenstein und Aristoteles – „den Weg vom Irrtum zur Wahrheit finden“ Der Frazer-Teil in TS 211 beginnt nun tatsächlich mit zwei (nicht drei wie Rhees sagt) Bemerkungen – genauer: mit vier Sektionen (in MS 110) –, die sich nicht im Komplex der Frazer-Bemerkungen in MS 110 (Seiten 178–257) befinden, sondern aus einem anderen Abschnitt in MS 110 stammen. Die Tatsache, dass der Beginn des Frazer-Teils in TS 211 von Wittgenstein eigens neu konzipiert und komponiert wurde, ist aus mehreren Gründen von herausragender Bedeutung. Diese zwei Bemerkungen zu Beginn des Frazer-Teils in TS 211 stammen aus einem weit früheren Teil in MS 110 als jenem, der die eigentlichen Frazer-Aufzeichnungen enthält, welche vom 19. Juli bis zum 6. Juli 1931 verfasst worden sind. Diese Bemerkungen in TS 211 sind nämlich den Seiten 58 und 63 in MS 110 entnommen und wurden dort ursprünglich am 10. und 11. Februar 1931 von Wittgenstein als vier separate Einzelsektionen niedergeschrieben. Anhand folgender tabellarischer Übersicht (Tabelle 3) können die beim Transfer von MS 110 in TS 211 vorgenommenen Modifikationen veranschaulicht werden. Tabelle 3 MS 110 3 2 1 4

58/3 58/2 58/1 63/3

TS 211 (…) (…) (…) (…)

1 2 3 4

313/1a 313/1b 313/1c 313/2

---------

(Sub-)Sektionsbeginn

BFrGB

Man muss beim Irrtum D.h. man muss die Quelle Einen von der Wahrheit Ich muss immer wieder

I-1a I-1b I-1c I-2

In der TS 211-Fassung werden die ersten drei (auf Seite 58 befindlichen) Sektionen zu einer Sektion, nun bestehend aus drei Subsektionen, zusammengefasst. Bei dieser Komposition des Anfangs des eigenen Frazer-Abschnitts in TS 211: 313–322 wird zudem die Reihenfolge dahingehend verändert, dass die dritte Sektion in MS  110 zur ersten Subsektion und die erste Sektion in MS 110 zur dritten Subsektion vertauscht wird. Die vierte Sektion (auf Seite 63 von MS 110 befindlich) behält ihre Eigenständigkeit. Und während in MS 110 die einzelnen vier Sektionen in runden Klammern stehen, wird dieses Einklammern in TS 211 nicht mehr vorgenommen.



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 61

Die von Wittgenstein in bewusster Auswahl und präziser Komposition verwendeten Bemerkungen – nämlich: TS 211: 313/1a–c und TS 211: 313/2 – für den Beginn des separierten (freie Restseite davor, nämlich auf TS 211: 312, und freie Restseite danach, nämlich auf TS 221: 322) Frazer-Teils in TS 211 sind von markanter Art und Weise, nämlich: ○\ Man muss beim Irrtum ansetzen und ihn in die Wahrheit überführen. ○\ D.h. man muss die Quelle des Irrtums aufdecken, sonst nützt uns das Hören der Wahrheit nichts. Sie kann nicht eindringen, solange //wenn// etwas anderes ihren Platz einnimmt. ○\ Einen von der Wahrheit zu überzeugen, genügt es nicht die Wahrheit zu konstatieren, sondern man muss den Weg vom Irrtum zur Wahrheit finden. ○\ Ich muss immer wieder im Wasser des Zweifels untertauchen.

Die erste, in drei Subsektionen gegliederte, Bemerkung bildet recht leicht erkennbar ein Beziehungsnetz, ein Aussagengefüge; die zweite, letzte Bemerkung lässt sich dann auch in dieses Netz integrieren. Mit diesen Sektionen gleich zu Beginn des Frazer-Abschnittes in TS 211 rückt Wittgenstein ein zentrales Anliegen seiner philosophischen Arbeit – auch und gerade bei der Auseinandersetzung mit und Kommentierung von Frazers Hauptwerk The Golden Bough – in den Vordergrund und in den Fokus. Welche Bedeutung dieses „Weg vom Irrtum zur Wahrheit“ bzw. „beim Irrtum ansetzen und ihn in die Wahrheit überführen“ in der Philosophie für Wittgenstein hat und wie tief verwurzelt Wittgenstein in bestimmten philosophischen Traditionen ist und zugleich wie souverän und frei er mit philosophischen Traditionen umgeht, kann gerade an diesen beiden Initialsektionen abgelesen werden. Neben anderen philosophiehistorischen Bezügen liegt hier jener zur Philosophie von Aristoteles – präzise zur Ethik dieses antiken Philosophen – vor. Aristoteles bekundet nämlich in seiner Nikomachischen Ethik / Ἠϑικὰ Νικομάχεια: Da man nun aber nicht nur die Wahrheit erkennen muß, sondern auch die Ursache des Irrtums (dies stärkt nämlich die Überzeugung; denn wenn man begriffen hat, weshalb etwas als wahr erscheinen kann, ohne wahr zu sein, wird man sich um so eher auf die Wahrheit selbst verlassen) […].61 Ἐπεὶ δ’ οὐ μόνον δεῖ τἀληϑὲς εἰπεῖν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ αἴτιον τοῦ ψεύδους· τοῦτο γὰρ συμβάλλεται πρὸς τὴν πίστιν· ὅταν γὰρ εὔλογον ϕανῇ τὸ διὰ τί ϕαίνεται ἀληϑές οὐκ ὂν ἀληϑὲς […].

61 Aristoteles 2001: 319. Nikomachische Ethik / Ἠϑικὰ Νικομάχεια 1154a22–26 (Buch VII, Kap. 15).

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

Während Wittgenstein diese dreigliedrige Sektion mit „Man muss“ beginnt, startet er die nachfolgende Sektion mit „Ich muss“. Auch hier kann man eine Beziehung zu antiker Philosophie angeben, denn der von Wittgenstein an sich selbst gerichtete Anspruch „Ich muss immer wieder im Wasser des Zweifels untertauchen“ ist auch auf das philosophische Werk von Aristoteles zu beziehen.62

12 B  estückung des Editionsteils I der „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ Was es aufzuklären gilt, ist die genaue Bestückung des ersten Editionsteils der publizierten Frazer-Bemerkungen; es gilt zu zeigen, dass dafür eben nicht nur TS 211 diente. Die nachfolgende Tabelle (Tabelle 4) dokumentiert die genaue Zusammensetzung dieses Editionsteils. Dazu wurden die Sektionen (mit vorhandener Subsektionsbildung in TS 211 aus eigenständigen Sektionen in MS 110) der Frazer-Bemerkungen durchnummeriert (Spalte 1),63 wurden die Sektions- bzw. Subsektionsanfänge angegeben (Spalte 2), wurde das jeweilige Erstvorkommen in MS 110 (Spalte 3) und die dortige Datierung (Spalte 4) aufgelistet, wurde das Vorkommen oder Nichtvorkommen in TS 211 angegeben (Spalte 5), wurde die in MS 110 jeweils vorhandene Sektionsmarkierung (=Sm) erfasst (Spalte 6), wurde – bei Vorhandensein eines Kringels als Sektionsmarkierung – der Transfer in Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch-Sammlung (=KB) notiert (Spalte 7), wurde zudem angegeben (Spalte 8 und Spalte 9) welche postume Publikationen der „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ bzw. „Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“ nicht alle Sektionen des ersten Editionsteils wiedergeben. Tabelle 4 Frazer Textanfang MS Teil I BFrGB-(Sub)Sektion 110

Datum

TS 211

Sm KB

BrynmillEdition

[I-01]

19.6.1931

--

∫

--

[vorhanden] [vorhanden]

19.6.1931

--

∫

--

[vorhanden] [vorhanden]

[I-02]

Ich glaube jetzt, 110, daß es 177/4 Worin ich aber weder 110, 177/5

SuhrkampEdition

62 Nikomachische Ethik / Ἠϑικὰ Νικομάχεια 1145b2–7 (Buch VII, Kap. 1) und Metaphysik / Τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά 995a24–b4 (Buch III=Beta, Kap. 1). 63 Referiert wird hier auf die Hackett-Edtition. Wittgenstein 2010.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 63

Tabelle 4: (fortgesetzt) Frazer Textanfang MS Teil I BFrGB-(Sub)Sektion 110

Datum

TS 211

Sm KB

BrynmillEdition

[I-03]

19.6.1931

--

∫

--

[vorhanden] [vorhanden]

19.6.1931

--

∫

--

[vorhanden] [vorhanden]

19.6.1931

--

∫

--

[vorhanden] [vorhanden]

10.2.1931

211, 313 211, 313 211, 313 211, 313

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

[I-04] [I-05] I-1a I-1b I-1c I-2 I-3a I-3b I-4 I-5 I-6 I-7 I-8 I-9 I-10 I-11 I-12 I-13 I-14

Von der Magie müsste Ja, das Ausschalten der Denn, wenn ich damals

110, 177/6 110, 177/7 110, 178/1

Man muß beim Irrtum D.h., man muß die Quelle Einen von der Wahrheit Ich muß immer wieder

110, 58/1 110, 58/2 110, 58/3 110, 63/4

Frazers Darstellung der So war also Augustinus Schon die Idee, den

110, 178/2 110, 178/3 110, 178/4 Frazer sagt, es sei 110, sehr 179/1 Ich glaube, das das 110, 179/2 Nur beschreiben 110, kann 180/1 Die Erklärung ist im 110, 180/3 Jede Erklärung ist 110, ja eine 180/4 Wer aber, etwa, von 110, der 181/1 Das Gedränge der 110, 181/2 Wenn man mit jener 110, 181/3 Wer von der 110, Majestät des 181/4 Einem religiösen 110, Symbol 181/5

10.2.1931 10.2.1931 11.2.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931 19.6.1931

211, 313 211, 313 211, 313 211, 314 211, 314 211, 315 211, 315 211, 315 211, 315 211, 315 211, 315 211, 315 211, 315

SuhrkampEdition

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

Tabelle 4: (fortgesetzt) Frazer Textanfang MS Teil I BFrGB-(Sub)Sektion 110

Datum

I-15

19.6.1931

Man möchte sagen:

110, 181/6 I-16 Die religiöse 110, Handlung 181/7 I-17 In effigie verbrennen. 110, 182/3 I-18 Man könnte auch 110, den 182/4 I-19 Der selbe Wilde, der, 110, 182/5 I-20 Die Idee, daß man 110, einen 182/6 I-21 Und immer beruht 110, die 182/7 I-22 Die Darstellung eines 110, 183/1 I-23a Die Taufe als 110, Waschung. 183/2 I-23b Wenn die Adoption 110, eines 183/3 I-23c Von den magischen 110, 183/7 I-23d Welche Enge des 110, 184/1 I-23e Warum sollte dem 110, 184/2 I-23f + Wie irreführend die 110, I-24a + Das Essen und 195/4 Trinken I-24b Daß der Schatten des 110, 197/1 I-24c Wie hätte das Feuer 110, oder 197/2 I-24d Die Magie in 110, „Alice in 183/4 I-24e Bei der magischen 110, 183/5 I-24f Man möchte nach 110, der 183/6 I-24g Nichts ist so 110, schwierig 184/4

19.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 22.6.1931

22.6.1931 22.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931 20.6.1931

TS 211 211, 315 211, 316 211, 316 211, 316 211, 316 211, 316 211, 316 211, 316 211, 316 211, 317 211, 317 211, 317 211, 317 211, 317 211, 318 211, 319 211, 319 211, 319 211, 319 211, 319

Sm KB

BrynmillEdition

SuhrkampEdition

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 65

Tabelle 4: (fortgesetzt) Frazer Textanfang MS Teil I BFrGB-(Sub)Sektion 110

Datum

I-24h

22.6.1931

I-25 I-26 I-27 I-28 I-29 I-30 I-31 I-32 I-33

Ich meine nicht, daß Wenn man es für Wir müssen die ganze Frazer: „That these Frazer wäre im Stande zu Frazer ist viel mehr Die historische Erklärung Identifizierung der „Und so deutet das Chor Der Begriff der

110, 198/1 110, 199/1 110, 204/2 110, 204/3 110, 204/1 110, 205/4 110, 225/3 110, 225/4 110, 256/5 110, 257/1

22.6.1931 23.6.1931 23.6.1931 23.6.1931 23.6.1931 25.6.1931 25.6.1931 2.7.1931 2.7.1931

I-34

Diese übersichtliche 110, 257/2

2.7.1931

I-35

Ein hypothetisches

110, 257/3

2.7.1931

I-36a

Ich möchte sagen: nichts (Das ist ja doch etwas Ja, diese Sonderbarkeit In unserer Sprache ist Austreiben des Todes

23.6.1931

I-39

In den alten Riten haben

110, 205/1 110, 205/2 110, 205/3 110, 205/5 110, 206/1 110, 206/2

I-40

Ich könnte mir denken

110, 253/1

I-36b I-36c I-37 I-38

23.6.1931 23.6.1931 23.6.1931 23.6.1931 23.6.1931 1.7.1931

TS 211

Sm KB

BrynmillEdition

SuhrkampEdition

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

/ [ja] vorhanden zwei Bem. 211, / [ja] vorhanden 282 zwei Bem. 211, ○/ ja vorhanden 322

vorhanden

211, 319 211, 320 211, 320 211, 320 211, 321 211, 321 211, 321 211, 321 211, 322 211, 281

211, 250 211, 251 211, 251 211, 251 211, 251 211, 281 --

vorhanden

vorhanden

/

--

vorhanden

vorhanden

/

--

vorhanden

vorhanden

/

--

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/ ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

--

--

vorhanden

vorhanden

/

--

vorhanden

vorhanden

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

66 

 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

Tabelle 4: (fortgesetzt) Frazer Textanfang MS Teil I BFrGB-(Sub)Sektion 110

Datum

TS 211

Sm KB

BrynmillEdition

SuhrkampEdition

I-41

1.7.1931

--

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

1.7.1931

--

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

1.7.1931

--

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

6.7.1931

--

○/` ja

vorhanden

vorhanden

6.7.1931

--

○/ ja

fehlt

fehlt

6.7.1931

--

○/` ja

fehlt

fehlt

6.7.1931

--

○/` ja

fehlt

fehlt

6.7.1931

--

○/` ja

fehlt

fehlt

6.7.1931

--

○/` ja

fehlt

fehlt

Man könnte sagen

110, 254/1 I-42 Ja, es ist wichtig, daß 110, 254/2 I-43 Wenn es einem 110, 255/3 I-44 Ich glaube, das 110, 297/2 I-45 Wenn ich über etwas 110, 297/3 I-46 Kein geringer Grund 110, 298/1 I-47aA Man könnte sagen, 110, nicht 298/2 I-47aE Denn das Erwachen 110, des 298/3 I-47b (Die Form des 110, 299/1

Jene fünf Bemerkungen ([I-01] bis [I-05]), die in MS 110 mit der Sektionsmarkierung „∫“ versehen sind und von Wittgenstein nicht in die Frazer-Auswahl in TS 211 transferiert wurden, obwohl sie inhaltlich eigentlich den Beginn der Frazer-Bemerkungen in MS 110 darstellen, wurden gleich zu Beginn in die hier gebotene Liste aufgenommen, da sie in den verschiedenen postumen Editionen der „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ in Einführungen oder in Fußnoten angegeben werden. Es folgt der eigens komponierte Anfang der Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211 (I-1a–c und I-2). Diese Anfangssektionen befinden sich in MS 110 nicht bei den Juni/Juli 1931 in MS 110 verfassten Frazer-Bemerkungen, sondern wurden bereits im Februar 1931 eingetragen. Alsdann folgt der eigentliche, von Wittgenstein eigens zusammengestellte zehnseitige Frazer-Teil in TS 211: 313–322 (I-3a bis I-35). Auf zwei Sektionen in diesem Frazer-Teil (I-33 und I-34) wird mit der Angabe „(zwei Bemerkungen)“ nur referiert, da sie sich bereits in TS 211: 281–282 befinden. Es folgen dann weitere Bemerkungen (I-36a bis I-39), die sich zwar in TS 211: 250–251 und TS 211: 281 befinden, aber nicht im eigentlichen Frazer-Teil enthalten sind. Zuletzt sind im ersten Editionsteil der Frazer-Bemerkungen noch Sektionen enthalten (I-40 bis I-47b), die überhaupt nicht in TS 211 vorhanden sind, sondern nur in MS 110 an zwei verschiedenen Stellen, nämlich MS 110: 253–255 und MS 110: 297–298, stehen. Eben dieser Sachverhalt wird bis jetzt in der



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 67

Wittgenstein-Forschung nahezu gänzlich übersehen oder übergangen. Nimmt man aber gerade diesen Sachverhalt ernst, so wird klar, dass der erste Editionsteil der publizierten „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ nicht einfach TS 211 entnommen ist, sondern durch Rush Rhees in eigenständiger und eigenmächtiger – wenn auch kompetenter – Editionsarbeit zusammengestellt wurde. Ein kritisches Hinterfragen des so zustande gekommenen Textcorpus ist künftighin erforderlich. So wird man etwa der Frage nachgehen müssen, warum nicht alle in den Manuskripten vorhandenen Frazer-Bemerkungen von Rhees bei der Editionsarbeit berücksichtigt wurden. Beispielsweise zwei am 2.7.1931 verfassten Bemerkungen in MS 110 – nämlich die beiden bereits erwähnten Sektionen MS 110: 256/3 und MS 110: 256/4 – wurden nicht aufgenommen, obwohl sie in MS 110 genau im Kontext der Frazer-Bemerkungen stehen und auch thematisch exakt dazu gehören (siehe Abb 2a): ○/ Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen. Und der Ritus der alten Mythen war eine Sprache. ○/ „Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.“ (Schiller)

Hier ist dann weiterführend die Frage zu erörtern, wie das Verhältnis der Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211 und in der postumen Publikationszusammenstellung einerseits und der Frazer-Bemerkungen in Wittgensteins selbst angelegter Kringel-Buch-Sammlung andererseits philologisch und philosophisch genau zu beurteilen ist. Klar kann jetzt schon konstatiert werden, dass die Zusammenstellung der Frazer-Bemerkungen (zudem in einem breiteren und größeren Kontext anderer Bemerkungen, insbesondere kultureller) im Kringel-Buch vollständiger ist. So sind die beiden soeben zitierten Bemerkungen mit der Sektionsmarkierung des Kringels versehen und gehören also in diese Kringel-Buch-Sammlung. Auch die – bereits eingehender behandelte – thematische Zusammengehörigkeit der Frazer-Bemerkungen und der Renan-Bemerkungen ist im Kringel-Buch realisiert. Weiterhin sind alsdann jene Frazer-Bemerkungen zu betrachten, die nicht in der postumen Publikation vorhanden sind, dafür aber eine sehr enge Verbindung zu Wittgensteins Buchprojekt „Philosophische Untersuchungen“ haben, ja sogar darin enthalten sind. Ein sehr gutes, anschauliches Beispiel dafür sind die am 2.7.1931 von Wittgenstein erstmals niedergeschriebenen drei Sektionen in MS 110: 259/4–6: / Die eigentlichen Grundlagen seiner Forschung fallen dem Menschen gar nicht auf. Es sei denn daß ihm dies einmal aufgefallen ist (Frazer etc. etc.) Und das heißt, das Auffallendste (Stärkste) fällt ihm nicht auf.

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/ Wollte man Thesen in der Philosophie aufstellen, es könnte nie über sie zur Diskussion kommen weil Alle mit ihnen einverstanden wären.

Diese Sektionen wurden zunächst über TS 211 und TS 212 bis ins „Big Typescript“ TS 213: 419 transferiert, dann in die PU-Urfassung MS 142, §119c+§120c komponiert und alsdann über die PU-Frühfassung TS 220, §104d+§105E, die bearbeitete PU-Frühfassung TS 239, §137d+§138E und die PU-Zwischenfassung bis in die PUSchlussfassung TS 227, §128+§129E weitertransferiert. Allerdings – und darauf ist genau zu achten – wurde bei der Verwendung dieser Sektionen in den PU-Fassungen der ursprünglich bis in TS 213: 419 vorhandene Klammervermerk „(Frazer etc. etc.)“, also der explizite Bezug zu Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen, nicht mehr verwendet. Auch hier kommt wieder der – ja schon erwähnte – doppelte Transferweg in Wittgensteins Nachlass zum Vorschein, nämlich in die Sammlung von Frazer-Bemerkungen einerseits und in das Buchprojekt „Philosophische Untersuchungen“ andererseits.

13 E  ditionsgeschichte „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ – Editionsteil II Auch der zweite Editionsteil der postumen Publikation „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“, also MS 143 als eine Sammlung von insgesamt 13 losen Blätter, ist editionsgeschichtlich genauer aufzuklären. Peter Westergaard hat sich in seiner wichtigen Studie Mennesket er et ceremonielt dyr. Ludwig Wittgensteins Bemækninger om Frazers „Den gyldne gren“ mit beiden Teilen von Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen eingehend beschäftigt und wichtige, wegweisende Forschungsergebnisse errungen.64 Insbesondere seine Ausführungen zum zweiten Editionsteil – mit der Differenzierung in „große Blätter“ und „kleine Blätter“ – ist von großer Bedeutung für ein adäquates philologisches und philosophisches Verstehen dieses Zettelkonvolutes MS 143. Westergaard hat auch den Fokus darauf gerichtet, dass hier erst noch weitere Forschungsarbeit zu leisten ist. An dieser Stelle kann nur ein erster Überblick gegeben bzw. die Aufmerksamkeit auf zwei Aspekte – auf die Ordnung der Blätter und auf die Frage der Datierung ihrer

64 Westergaard 2013. Für den zweiten Teil der Frazer-Bemerkungen hat auch er eine aussagekräftige Übersichtstabelle erstellt. Westergaard 2013a: 112–113 und Westergaard 2013b. Siehe insbesondere auch Westergaards Beitrag hier in dieser Publikation.



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 69

Entstehung – gerichtet werden. In der „Introductory Note“ der Erstpublikation schreibt Rush Rhees: He wrote the second set of remarks – and they are only rough notes – years later; not earlier than 1936 and probably after 1948. They are written in pencil on odd bits of paper; probably he meant to insert the smaller ones in the copy of the one-volume edition of The Golden Bough that he was using. Miss Anscombe found them among some of his things after his death.65

Zum zweiten Editionsteil kann ebenfalls eine Überblickstabelle geboten werden (Tabelle 5). Auch hier wurden die Sektionen dieses Teils durchnummeriert (Spalte 1), wurde der jeweilige Sektionsbeginn angegeben (Spalte 2), wurde die genaue Seitenangabe für die insgesamt 13 Einzelblätter angegeben (Spalte 3), wurde die Größe der Einzelblätter vermerkt (Spalte 4), wurden die auf den Blättern vorhandenen Referenzen auf bestimmte Seiten in der „Abridged Edition“ von Frazers The Golden Bough erfasst (Spalte 5), wurde das Jahr der Niederschrift veranschlagt (Spalte 6), wurde angegeben, welche Sektionen in welchen postumen Editionen nicht vorhanden sind (Spalte 7 und Spalte 8). Tabelle 5 Frazer Textanfang BFrGB- MS 143 Teil II Sektion

Blatt- Abr. Ed. Jahr größe

BrynmillEdition

SuhrkampEdition

II-1

143,1a–1b

(¼)

S. 168

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,1c

(¼)

S. 169

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,2a

(¼)

S. 170

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,2c 143,2c–2d

(¼) (¼)

S. 171 ---

1933? 1933?

fehlt fehlt vorhanden vorhanden

143,3a 143,3a

(¼) (¼)

S. 179 ---

1933? 1933?

fehlt fehlt

fehlt fehlt

143,3d

(¼)

---

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,4a+4d 143,4b

(½) (¼)

S. 614 ---

1933 1933

vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden

II-2 II-3 II-4 II-5 II-6a II-6b

II-7 II-8 II-9

Dies ist natürlich nicht Wenn ein Mensch in Der Unsinn ist hier, daß “… a network of So einfach es klingt: der Wievielmehr Wahrheit Frazer merkt nicht, daß Alle kindliche (infantile) Das Auffallendste In allen diesen

65 Synthese-Edition. Wittgenstein 1967: 234.

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 Josef G. F. Rothhaupt

Tabelle 5: (fortgesetzt) Frazer Textanfang BFrGB- MS 143 Teil II Sektion

Blatt- Abr. Ed. Jahr größe

BrynmillEdition

II-10

143,5a+5d

(½)

S. 618

1933

vorhanden vorhanden

143,6a–6b 143,7a–8a 143,8a–8b 143,8b

(1) (1) (1) (1)

S. 618 S. 619 -----

1933 1933 1933 1933

vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden

143,8b

(1)

---

1933

vorhanden vorhanden

143,8b

(1)

---

1933

vorhanden vorhanden

143,8b–9a

(1)

---

1933

vorhanden vorhanden

143,9a–9b 143,9b 143,9b–10a 143,10a 143,10a–10b

(1) (1) (1) (1) (1)

-----------

1933 1933 1933 1933 1933

vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden

vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden

143,11a

(¼)

S. 640

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,11a–11b

(¼)

---

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,11c

(¼)

S. 641

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,11c

(¼)

---

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,11c–11d 143,11d 143,12a–12b 143,12b 143,12b–12c

(¼) (¼) (¼) (¼) (¼)

----S. 643 -----

1933? 1933? 1933? 1933? 1933?

fehlt fehlt fehlt fehlt fehlt

fehlt fehlt fehlt fehlt fehlt

143,13a

(¼)

S. 680

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

143,13c–13d

(¼)

S. 681

1933?

fehlt

fehlt

II-11 II-12a II-12b II-12c

II-13 II-14 II-15 II-16a II-16b II-16c II-16d II-16e

II-17 II-18 II-19 II-20 II-21 II-22 II-23 II-24 II-25 II-26 II-27

Nichts spricht dafür, Hier scheint die Hier sieht etwas aus wie Die Tatsache, daß das Es ist, wenn ich so einen Die Umgebung einer Eine Überzeugung liegt Was aber wehrt sich Man könnte es auch so Aber es ist ja nicht der So wie das Beltanefest Ebenso, daß Kinder an Warum soll es aber Das kann man sich sehr Alle diese verschiedene Die Verbindung von Es liegt eine einfache Wie es ‚infantile‘ Das Richtige und Daß das Feuer zur Die gänzliche Auch wenn man nicht ‚Soul-stone‘. Da sieht Das würde darauf

SuhrkampEdition

vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden vorhanden



Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 

 71

14 P  ublikationsgeschichte „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ 1967–2010 Nach der Erstausgabe, der Synthese-Edition, im Jahre 1967 wurde in der Fachzeitschrift The Human World im Jahre 1971 erstmals eine – von A. C. Miles angefertigte – Übersetzung ins Englische – „Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“ veröffentlicht.66 Von größter Bedeutung ist dabei allerdings der Umstand, dass eben in dieser Human-World-Edition an mehreren Stellen (sowohl im ersten Editionsteil als auch im zweiten Editionsteil) Frazer-Bemerkungen fehlen und damit nicht mehr der Gesamtumfang der Synthese-Edition erreicht wird. Das Weglassen – in dieser Art und Weise – ist sowohl im ersten als auch im zweiten Editionsteil nicht nachvollziehbar. Dieser negative Tatbestand wird bis in die Gegenwart von vielen Rezipienten überhaupt nicht wahrgenommen, und dieser gravierende Mangel hat sich in weitere Editionen fortgesetzt.67 Im Jahre 1979 erschien erstmals eine zweisprachige Brynmill-Edition „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“.68 Diese von Rush Rhees „revised“ Edition enthält neben dem deutschsprachigen Text die englischsprachige Übersetzung durch A. C. Miles und die mit der Synthese-Edition textidentische „Introductory Note“. Bereits in der Synthese-Edition findet sich im ersten Editionsteil folgende Formulierung: „[Die folgenden Bemerkungen stehen im Maschineskript nicht mit den obigen zusammen:]“.69 Damit wird angedeutet, dass die Frazer-Bemerkungen dieses ersten Teils zwar aus TS 211 stammen, aber sich dort an verschiedenen Stellen finden. In der Brynmill-Edition wird dieser Sachverhalt deutschsprachig wiederum genau in dieser Formulierung wiedergegeben,70 englischsprachig wird dann allerdings keine wörtliche Übersetzung davon geboten, sondern folgendermaßen beschrieben: „[The remarks up to this point form the ‚section‘ Wittgenstein had typed as though forming a separate essay. The passages which follow now were not included in this, although they come – at various points – in the same large manuscript and in the revision and typing of it.]“71 Bereits in der deut-

66 Human-World-Edition. Wittgenstein 1971. 67 Weitere Editionen, nämlich die deutsch-englische Brynmill-Edition (1979) und die deutsche Suhrkamp-Edition (1989) sind betroffen. Welche Bemerkungen genau fehlen, wurde in den beiden Tabellen für die beiden Editionsteile genau angegeben und zudem optisch hervorgehoben. 68 Brynmill-Edition. Wittgenstein 1979a. Während die Brynmill-Edition für England bestimmt war, wurde sie als Humanities-Edition, bei Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, text- und zeitgleich in den United States of America veröffentlicht. 69 Synthese-Edition. Wittgenstein 1967: 242. 70 Brynmill-Edition. Wittgenstein 1979a: 10. 71 Brynmill-Edition. Wittgenstein 1979a: 10e.

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schen Formulierung ist ein Fehler enthalten, der dann in der englischen Formulierung sogar noch verstärkt wird. In beiden Aussagen wird nämlich insinuiert, dass sich alle Frazer-Bemerkungen des ersten Editionsteils in TS 211 (wenn dort auch an verschiedenen Stellen) befinden. Dies ist aber – wie noch zu zeigen sein wird – mitnichten der Fall! Im Jahre 1979 erschien in der von C. G. Luckhardt herausgegebenen Publikation Wittgenstein. Sources and Perspectives72 – nahezu zeitgleich mit der Brynmill-Edition – ebenfalls eine, diesmal nur englischsprachige, aber entsprechend der Erstausgabe als Synthese-Edition vollständige Publikation von Wittgensteins „Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“. Dazu wurde von John Beversluis eine eigene Übersetzung angefertigt und nicht die von A. C. Miles für die BrynmillEdition erstellte verwendet. In der „Editor’s Introduction“ vermeldet Luckhardt zu dieser neuen Harvester-Edition: Wittgenstein’s „Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“ appears here for the first time in a complete English translation. John Beversluis has based his translation on the German text that appeared in Synthese in 1967, but it includes several corrections to that text, which are indicated in the footnotes. Rush Rhees originally compiled the text of the „Remarks,“ extracting it from two distinct sources. Part I of the „Remarks“ begins in an entry in one of Wittgenstein’s manuscript books, dated 19 June 1931. More remarks were added on this and other topics during the following weeks, and, probably later in the same year, Wittgenstein edited most of this material into a typescript. Rhees has selected the first part of the „Remarks“ from sections of this typescript. Part II of the „Remarks“ was written much later – certainly no earlier than 1936, and, Rhees estimates, probably after 1948. This section consists of notes written on loose scraps of paper, which Wittgenstein wrote as commentary to certain pages in the one-volume edition of The Golden Bough. Mr Rhees has graciously supplied the relevant quotations for Wittgenstein’s page number references, and they are included as footnotes to the text.73

In der von Joachim Schulte im Jahre 1989 erstmals herausgegebenen Veröffentlichung Vortrag über Ethik und andere kleine Schriften von Ludwig Wittgenstein werden in deutscher Originalsprache auch wieder die „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“74 publiziert. Die in den vorhergehenden Editionen vorhandene „Introductory Note“ ist in dieser Suhrkamp-Edition nicht mehr enthalten, aber der Herausgeber und Übersetzer Joachim Schulte macht am Ende des Buches unter der Überschrift „Textnachweise“ zu den „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ folgende Angaben:

72 Harvester-Edition. Wittgenstein 1979b. 73 Luckhardt 1979: 15–16. 74 Suhrkamp-Edition. Wittgenstein 1989.



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 73

Teil I entstand in der ursprünglichen Form 1931 (Ms.-Band VI, vW-Nr. 110), wurde sodann teilweise überarbeitet und (wahrscheinlich 1932) in das Ts. 211 übernommen. Teil I folgt dieser Typoskriptversion. Die Rechtschreibung wurde an wenigen Stellen korrigiert, einige der von Wittgenstein offengelassenen Alternativen wurden entschieden. Der Text wurde für die vorliegende Ausgabe neu durchgesehen und gelegentlich verbessert. Im Manuskript begann Wittgenstein den betreffenden Abschnitt mit den folgenden, später weggelassenen Bemerkungen: […] Teil II stammt aus wesentlich späterer Zeit und wurde laut Rhees „nicht vor 1936 und wahrscheinlich nach 1948“ geschrieben. Die einzige erhaltene Fassung steht auf kleinen Zettelchen, flüchtig mit Bleistift notiert. Der Text wurde für die vorliegende Ausgabe neu durchgesehen und folgt möglichst genau dem Original. Die Frazer-Zitate wurden von Rush Rhees eingefügt.75

Auch diese Information zum „Textnachweis“ geht davon aus, dass der erste Editionsteil vollständig in TS 211 vorhanden ist. Dass einige Stellen in dieser Suhrkamp-Edition korrigiert wurden, ist zutreffend. Zutreffend ist aber auch, dass neue Fehler eingebracht wurden. So hat nämlich auch diese Edition, in ebenjener Weise wie dies in der Human-World-Edition und in der Brynmill-Edition der Fall ist, den gravierenden (nirgendwo erwähnten) Mangel der Unvollständigkeit. Es bleibt nicht nachvollziehbar, inwiefern „die vorliegende Ausgabe neu durchgesehen und gelegentlich verbessert“ wurde. Auch die eigenmächtige Vorgehensweise des Editors, „einige der von Wittgenstein offengelassenen Alternativen“ zu entscheiden, ist höchst problematisch, denn bei einer Verbesserung des Textes wäre ja gerade das vollständige Hinzufügen der Alternativformulierungen und weitergehend die Wiedergabe aller von Wittgenstein selbst gemachten Einfügungen, Korrekturen, Streichungen (ggf. unter Hinzuziehung der vorgängigen Manuskriptfassung in MS 110 zusätzlich zur späteren Typoskriptfassung in TS 211) zu erwarten gewesen. Zugegebenermaßen ist auch diese Publikation – wie jede andere bis jetzt erschienene Veröffentlichung von Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen – keine historisch-kritische Edition. In der von James C. Klagge und Alfred Nordmann im Jahre 1993 herausgegebenen Publikation Philosophical Occasions 1912–195176 von Ludwig Wittgenstein finden sich wiederum deutsch-englisch die „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“. Diese Hackett-Edition (insbesondere in der dritten Auflage aus dem Jahre 201077) gilt derzeit als Referenzausgabe auch für Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen, wie sie seit dem Jahr 1967 postum zusammengestellt und veröffentlicht wurden und werden. Hier wird die englischspra-

75 Wittgenstein 1989: 141–142. 76 Hackett-Edition. Wittgenstein 1993 / Wittgenstein 2010. 77 Zur dritten Auflage im Jahre 2010 liegen neue „Editorial Emendations“ und die „Authors’ Alterations“ vor.

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chige Übersetzung von John Beversluis verwendet, wie sie erstmals im Jahre 1979 in der Harvester-Edition78 erschienen ist. Sie wurde von John Beversluis für die Hackett-Edition leicht revidiert. From this first encounter with Frazer [1931] stems part I of the following collection of remarks. The remarks occur intermittently throughout a manuscript volume that Wittgenstein kept for the first half of 1931 (MS 110). He later grouped them together and incorporated them into a larger typescript of altogether 771 pages (TS 221). In this typescript, the longest section on Frazer runs ten pages and represents the bulk of part I. It is followed by shorter sets of remarks from the same typescript. The remarks of part II stem from a second encounter with Frazer. According to Rush Rhees, Wittgenstein received a much-abbreviated one-volume edition […]. Thus „not earlier than 1936 and probably after 1948“ [Rhees in Synthese-Edition, „Introductory Note“, 234] Wittgenstein made pencil notes on scraps of paper referring to particular pages in this abbreviated edition. They were probably meant for insertion into the pages of thze book (they are now known as MS 143). Part II consists of these notes. […] The „Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“ were first edited and published in 1967 by Rush Rhees in the journal Synthese. Rhees later prepared a bilingual book edition [Brynmill-Edition] which leaves out a considerable number of the remarks he had earlier included. Some of the later editions followed Rhees’s earlier format; others adopted his later cuts. […]79

In dieser Hackett-Edition werden erstmals hilfreiche, informative und richtigstellende Hinweise zur Editionsgeschichte der „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“ geboten. Statt „TS 221“ müsste es allerdings „TS 211“ heißen. Aber auch hier wird unverändert (wenn auch als Zitat von Rush Rhees ausgewiesen) die Auffassung tradiert, dass der zweite Editionsteil der Frazer-Bemerkungen „not earlier than 1936 and probably after 1948“ von Wittgenstein verfasst wurde. Zu ebendieser Datierungsfrage können nun aber neuere Forschungsergebnisse – in einem diesen Beitrag hier abschließenden Kapitel – vorgebracht werden.

15 Frazers Wyse Memorial Lectures 1932–1933 und Wittgensteins Manuskript MS 143 Was nun die noch ausstehende Beantwortung der Frage betrifft, welche Edition von Frazers The Golden Bough Wittgenstein im May Term 1933 bei der Vor- und/

78 Harvester-Edition. Wittgenstein 1979b. 79 Hackett-Edition. Wittgenstein 1993 / Wittgenstein 2010: 115–116.



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oder Nachbereitung seiner Lehrveranstaltungen tatsächlich verwendet hat, kann weitere, letzte Klarheit geschaffen und zudem ein damit verbundener sehr interessanter Sachverhalt – eben die Datierung von MS 143 betreffend – aufgezeigt werden. Frazer hat, wie bereits ausgeführt wurde, im Michaelmas Term 1932 und im May Term 1933 die „Wyse Memorial Lectures“ gehalten. Dazu lassen sich dokumentierend Quellen angeben und auswerten. Im Cambridge University Reporter wurde am 7. Oktober 1932, die Lectures von Frazer im Trinity College betreffend, „published by Authority“ folgende Ankündigung veröffentlicht:80 Wyse Memorial Lectures on Social Anthropology Sir James Frazer, O. M., will lecture on The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion on Tuesday, November 1, 8, and 15, at 5 P.M. in Lecture Room 5 of the College.

Und im Cambridge University Reporter wird am 18. April 1933, abermals die Lectures von Frazer im Trinity College betreffend, „published by Authority“ folgende Mitteilung gemacht:81 Wyse Memorial Lectures on Social Anthropology Sir James Frazer, O. M., will deliver his remaining lectures on The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion on Mondays April 24, May 1, and 8, at 5 P.M. in Lecture Rooms 5 and 6 of the College. The lectures are open without fee to members of the University and to members of Girton College and Newham College.

Sir James George Frazer hat also an drei Abenden im Michaelmas Term 1932 und an drei Abenden im May Term 1933 seine „Wyse Memorial Lectures“ gehalten. Dabei hat er – so ist zu schließen – an einem Abend jeweils zwei Lectures präsentiert, denn pro Term hat er – wie den beiden Publikationen dieser Lectures zu entnehmen ist – insgesamt sechs Vorlesungen geliefert.82

80 Cambridge University Reporter (Friday, 7 October 1932), No. 2901, Vol. LXIII. No. 4, p. 165. 81 Cambridge University Reporter (Tuesday, 18 April 1933), No. 2928, Vol. LXIII. No. 31, p. 909. 82 Als zusätzlicher Beleg, dass pro Abend zwei Lectures von Frazer vorgetragen wurden, ist eine konkrete Angabe in der offiziellen Ankündigung für den May Term zu werten, nämlich: „at 5 P.M. in Lecture Rooms 5 and 6 of the College“. Da von einer Bilokation bei Frazer nicht auszugehen ist, wird an einem Abend die jeweils erste Vorlesung in „Lecture Room 5“ und die jeweils zweite in „Lecture Room 6“ stattgefunden haben. Für die Hilfe bei diesen Recherchen und bei der Beschaffung von aussagekräftigen Dokumenten möchte ich mich bei Jonathan Smith von der Trinity College Library ganz herzlich bedanken.

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Sowohl im Michaelmas Term 1932 als auch im May Term 1933 hat auch Wittgenstein seine jeweils zwei Lehrveranstaltungen gehalten; Michaelmas 1932 seine Vorlesung am Montag (5 P.M.) und sein Kolloquium am Freitag (5 P.M.); May 1933 seine Lecture (L) am Montag (5 P.M.) und seine Discussion Class (D) am Freitag (5 P.M.).83 Während Frazer seine Vorlesungen in „Lecture Room 5“ oder „Lecture Room 6“ präsentierte, hat Wittgenstein seine Vorlesung und sein Kollequium in seinen Räumen im Whewell’s Court gegeben. Michaelmas 1932 waren Frazers „Wyse Memorial Lectures“ immer am Dienstag (5. P.M.); May 1933 waren Frazers „Wyse Memorial Lectures“ immer am Montag (5 P.M.). Und daher fanden im May Term 1933 die Vorlesungen von Frazer und Wittgenstein zur gleichen Zeit statt. In einer Tabelle kann man übersichtlich alle relevanten und aussagekräftigen Daten präsentieren (Tabelle 6).84 Tabelle 6 Datum 1933

Wochen- D tag L

Wittgenstein Frazer Lecture Lecture

Verteilung der Lectures

Wittgensteins Frazer-Bezug

21. April 1933 24. April 1933

Freitag Montag

D L

5 P.M. 5 P.M.

Freitag Montag

D L

5 P.M. 5 P.M.

5. Mai 1933

Freitag

D

5 P.M.

--Beide halten zugleich Lecture --Beide halten zugleich Lecture ---

-----

28. April 1933 1. Mai 1933

--5 P.M. Lec. I + II --5 P.M. Lec. III + IV ---

8. Mai 1933

Montag

--

---

9. Mai 1933

Dienstag L

Ausnahme!

5 P.M. Lec. V + VI ---

Nur Frazer hält seine Lecture Nur Wittgenstein hält seine Lecture

Freitag

5 P.M.

---

---

12. Mai 1933

D

----Wittgenstein nimmt Bezug auf Frazer --Wittgenstein nimmt Bezug auf Frazer ---

83 Zum Michaelmas Term 1932 sind in den Lecturenotes von Moore folgende Daten dokumentiert: Mo. 14.11., Fr. 18.11., Mo. 21.11., Fr. 25.11., Mo. 28.11. 1932. Zum May Term 1933 sind in den Lecturenotes von Moore folgende Daten dokumentiert: Fr. 21.4., Mo. 24.4., Fr. 28.4., Mo. 1.5., Fr. 5.5., Di. 9.5., Fr. 12.5., Mo. 15.5., Fr. 19.5., Mo. 22.5., Fr. 26.5., Mo. 29.5.1933. Für den 21.4.1933 sind keine Aufzeichnungen von Moore vorhanden, denn, so Moores Vermerk: „Missed one April 21 (T’s party)“. Moore nahm also an dieser Sitzung nicht teil – höchstwahrscheinlich weil sein zweiter Sohn Timothy Moore (1922–2003) eine Party feierte. 84 Wichtige dokumentierende Angaben finden sich nicht nur in Moores Lecturenotes, Stern/ Rogers/Citron (im Erscheinen), sondern auch in McHale 1966: 91, Appendix II.



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Tabelle 6: (fortgesetzt) Datum 1933

Wochen- D tag L

Wittgenstein Frazer Lecture Lecture

Verteilung der Lectures

Wittgensteins Frazer-Bezug

15. Mai 1933

Montag

L

5 P.M.

---

---

19. Mail 1933 22. Mai 1933

Freitag Montag

D L

5 P.M. 5 P.M.

-----

-----

26. Mai 1933

Freitag

D

5 P.M.

---

---

Wittgenstein nimmt Bezug auf Frazer --Wittgenstein nimmt Bezug auf Frazer Wittgenstein nimmt Bezug auf Frazer

29. Mai 1933

Montag

L

5 P.M.

---

---

---

Hochinteressant ist dabei ein ganz spezielles Detail, nämlich obwohl Wittgenstein in diesem Term für gewöhnlich am Montag seine Vorlesung hielt, hat er ausnahmsweise am 8. Mai nicht gelesen, sondern erst am Dienstag, dem 9. Mai 1933. Es ist sehr naheliegend, dass der Grund für diese Terminverlegung der Umstand war, dass Wittgenstein die Vorlesung von Frazer besuchen wollte bzw. besucht hat.85 Alleine das Konstatieren der möglichen Terminverlegung ist jedoch nicht ausreichend. Viel gewichtiger ist das Aufdecken einer markanten Korrelation zwischen Frazers Vorlesungen und dem Inhalt von Wittgensteins beiden Lehrveranstaltungen während dieses Zeitraums. Frazer hielt im May Term 1933 seine Lecture I und Lecture II am 24. April 1933 und seine Lecture III und Lecture IV am 1. Mai 1933.

85 Zur genauen Aufklärung und Bestätigung ebendieses Sachverhaltes habe ich am 31. März 2014 bei David Stern, einem der Herausgeber der Mitschriften von Moore, per Mail angefragt, nämlich: „In Euerer Transkription der Moore-Lecture-Notes werden für die Vorlesungen im Michaelmas Term 1932 und im May Term 1933 Datumsangaben gemacht. Meine Frage ist, ob diese Datumsangaben von Moore selbst stammen? Und noch konkret zum 9. Mai 1933. Ist dieses Datum korrekt? Dies ist nämlich ein Dienstag, aber Wittgenstein hat ja in diesem Term immer am Montag seine Vorlesung gehalten. – Falls Dienstag als Ausnahme zutreffen sollte, würde dies perfekt Sinn machen und eine sehr gute Erklärung haben.“ Und David Stern hat dankenswerterweise auf diese meine Anfrage am 2. April 2014 präzise folgende Antwort gemailt: „Yes, all dates in our transcriptions of the lecture notes are part of Moore’s original notes. In view of the placement at the top of the page, with space below, they certainly look as though they were written down first, before he began taking any lecture notes on that day. ‚May 9‘ is very clearly written down in Moore’s notes. I do not have any way of telling whether the lecture for Monday May 8 was rescheduled for Tuesday May 9, or if it was given on Monday the 8th, and Moore made a mistake, but you are right that that date does not fit the pattern of Monday lectures.“

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Wittgenstein hielt ebenfalls an diesen beiden Tagen seine Vorlesung. Am Freitag, dem 5. Mai äußert sich dann Wittgenstein in seiner Discussion Class – erstmals in seinen Lehrveranstaltungen in Cambridge seit 1930 überhaupt – zu den Ansichten und Lehren von Sir James George Frazer, konkret zunächst: „Frazer constantly makes one particular kind of mistake in explanation.“; alsdann: „Frazer talks of Magic performed with an effigy“. Am 8. Mai hält nur Frazer seine Lecture V und Lecture VI. Wittgenstein hat aber seine Vorlesung um einen Tag auf Dienstag, den 9. Mai verlegt. In seinem „Return to Frazer“ in ebendieser Vorlesung geht er insbesondere auch auf das „Chapter on Fire Festivals in Europe“, ja ganz konkret und exemplarisch auf die „Beltane Fires (Midsummer /May-day/ in the Highlands)“ ein. Frazer beginnt seine Lecture III am 1. Mai 1933 folgendermaßen: In the last lecture I dealt with some of the barriers which primitive man erects to prevent the spirits of the dead from returning to haunt and trouble the living: in particular I described the barrier of water which he sometimes adopts for that purpose. Often with the same object he has recourse to a barrier of fire.

Und am Ende dieser Eingangspassage seiner dritten Vorlesung findet sich die explizite Referenz auf Feuer-Festivals, präzise auf das Balder-Festival, in der zwölfbändigen Ausgabe von The Golden Bough, nämlich folgende Fußnote: „On the barrier of fire against the spirits of the dead, cf. The Golden Bough, Part IV. Balder the Beautiful, ii, pp. 17–19.“86 Nachdem Frazer seinen Lecture-Zyklus, den zweiten zum Thema „The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion“, am 9. Mai 1933 beendet hatte, geht Wittgenstein dann weiter in seinen Lectures am 15. und am 22. Mai und in seiner Discussion Class am 26. Mai auf Frazers Auffassungen ein. So liegt es auf der Hand, dass die Lectures von Frazer Wittgenstein motiviert und provoziert haben, sich mit ihm und seinen Lehren wieder (wie schon beim Abfassen seiner Frazer-Bemerkungen im Jahre 1931 in Manuskript MS 110) näher zu beschäftigen und sich zudem öffentlich vor den Teilnehmern seiner Lehrveranstaltungen dazu zu äußern. Auf einen weiteren wichtigen Sachverhalt ist in diesem Zusammenhang nun noch genauer einzugehen. Wittgensteins „Bemerkungen über Frazers The

86 Frazer 1934: 53. Diese Referenz müsste sich aber statt auf „Part IV“ auf „Part VI“ beziehen. Das Kapitel, auf welches hier Bezug genommen wird (Chapter VII), trägt den Titel Fire-Festivals in other Lands, und das sich daran unmittelbar anschließende Kapitel (Chapter VIII) behandelt The Burning of Human Beings in the Fire und beginnt mit „§ 1. The Burning of Effigies in the Fires“, also ebenjenes Thema, das Wittgenstein in seiner Lehrveranstaltung am 5. Mai 1933 kommentiert. Erwähnenswert ist auch, dass Frazer im Jahr 1930 seine Studie Myths of the Origin of Fire. An Essay veröffentlicht hatte. Frazer 1930.



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Golden Bough“ liegen in seinem Nachlass ja in zwei Teilen vor, nämlich die Frazer-Bemerkungen in MS 110 und TS 211 einerseits und die Frazer-Bemerkungen in MS  143 andererseits. Die Frazer-Bemerkungen in MS 143, das Konvolut aus insgesamt 13 losen Einzelblättern, sind zudem wiederum in zwei Gruppen zu unterscheiden, nämlich in „große Zettel“ und in „kleine Zettel“.87 Differenziert man MS 143 in diese zwei Zettelgruppen, also MS 143(I) für die Portion der großen Zettel und MS 143(II) für die Portion der kleinen Zettel, so ist dies sehr sinnvoll. Jede dieser beiden Zettelgruppen ist auf je eigenes Papier geschrieben (unterschiedliche Blattmaße, unterschiedliche Zeilengestaltung und -farbe, unterschiedliche Wasserzeichen). Hier können und sollen dazu nur einige Eckpunkte ausgeführt werden: Auf den Zetteln in MS 143 finden sich Seitenreferenzen auf die „Abridged Edition“ von Frazers The Golden Bough. Zudem beziehen sich die großen Zettel thematisch auf das Kapitel „The Fire Festivals in Europe“, spezifisch auf die „Beltane Fire“. Und nachdem ja durch die Originalmitschriften von Moore nun klar und deutlich erwiesen ist, dass Wittgenstein bereits 1933 – und nicht erst ab 1936 – über ebendieses Thema bei Frazer gesprochen hat, ist es mehr als naheliegend, dass mindestens die großen Zettel (und gegebenenfalls auch die kleinen) zur Vorbereitung (und ggf. Nachbereitung) seiner Lehrveranstaltungen im May Term 1933 unter Verwendung der einbändigen Ausgabe von Wittgenstein verfasst wurden. Wenn nun als widerlegt gelten kann, dass MS 143 „not earlier than 1936 and probably after 1948“ geschrieben wurde, so heißt dies aber nicht, dass er sich nach 1936 nicht mehr mit Frazer beschäftigt hätte – im Gegenteil! Um nur ein Beispiel zu nennen:88 In den Manuskriptband MS 137: 48b hat Wittgenstein am 4. Juni 1948 folgende Bemerkung eingetragen: | Religiöser Glaube & Aberglaube sind ganz verschieden. Der eine entspringt aus Furcht & ist eine Art falscher Wissenschaft. Der andre ist ein Vertraun. |

Also auch in seinen letzten Schaffensjahren sind in Wittgensteins Nachlass jene Themenstellungen präsent, mit denen er sich seit Beginn der 30er Jahre – insbe-

87 Hierauf hat Peter Westergaard die Aufmerksamkeit gerichtet und damit die philologische Forschung zu diesem Detailbereich – auch beim Autor dieses hier vorgelegten Beitrags – ungemein befördert. Westergaard 2013a und Westergaard 2013b. Für anregende Gespräche, für kollegialen und freundschaftlichen Austausch von Forschungsergebnissen bin ich Peter Westergaard sehr dankbar. 88 Weitere markante explizite Beispiele finden sich etwa in MS 116: 283–285 und in TS 219: 22–23. Beispielsweise auch Wittgensteins intensive Beschäftigung mit Themen der „Philosophie der Psychologie“ im Zeitraum 1945–1951 ist gerade auch auf der Basis seiner Frazer-Bemerkungen zu sehen. – Man denke nur an die häufigen Formulierungen wie etwa „Stellen wir uns einen Eingeborenenstamm vor“. Siehe dazu Rothhaupt 2011: 158–168.

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sondere im Kontext seiner Beschäftigung mit den Ansichten Frazers – eingehend und anhaltend beschäftigt hat. Interessanterweise trägt diese Bemerkung in MS 137 die Anfangstrich-Endstrich-Sektionsmarkierung, also „| … |“, und gehört damit zu einer im Zeitraum 1931–1951 (im direkten Anschluss an seine Sammlung des Kringel-Buches für den Zeitraum 1929–1931) von ihm selbst angelegten besonderen Sammlung von (insbesondere kulturellen) Bemerkungen. Die soeben zitierte Bemerkung über die markante Differenz zwischen „Religiöser Glaube & Aberglaube“ wurde dann auch im Januar 1949 von MS 137 in MS 168: 1v fein säuberlich abgeschrieben. MS 168 ist eine von Wittgenstein begonnene Zusammenstellung von Anfangstrich-Endstrich-Sektionen. Auf die wichtigen, bis jetzt weitgehend noch unerforschten bzw. unbekannten engen Zusammenhänge zwischen Frazer-Bemerkungen-Sammlung, Kringel-Buch-Sammlung und AnfangstrichEndstrich-Sammlung kann hier nicht mehr eingegangen, sondern nur hingewiesen werden.89 In diesem weiteren Kontext in Wittgensteins Gesamtnachlass sind dann auch die Frazer-Bemerkungen umfassend zu verorten und eingehend zu erschließen. Eine textkritische Neuedition der „Bemerkungen über Frazers The Golden Bough“ – möglichst in größerem Umfang und in weiterem Nachlasskontext – ist dringend erforderlich, denn nur so kann die philologische und philosophische Rückbindung und Einbindung in Wittgensteins Œuvre gewährleistet werden und nur so bekommen Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen in ihrem weit im Nachlass über den Zeitraum 1931–1951 verteilten Umfang ihre eigentliche Bedeutung und ermöglichen so eine adäquate Interpretation, erscheinen nicht – wie dies bis jetzt immer noch weitgehend der Fall ist – als „erratischer Block in philosophischer Landschaft“.90

Literatur Ambrose, Alice/MacDonald, Margaret (Hrsg.) (1982) Wittgentein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–1935, Oxford: Blackwell. Aristoteles (2001) Nikomachische Ethik / Ἠϑικὰ Νικομάχεια, übersetzt von Olof Gigon, neu herausgegeben von Rainer Nickel, Düsseldorf/Zürich: Artemis & Winkler. Borges, Jorge Luis (2005) Gesammelte Werke. Der Essays zweiter Teil, München: Hanser.

89 Rothhaupt 2011 und Rothhaupt 2013. Siehe auch Brusotti 2014. 90 Solch eine Neuedition (inklusive einer präzisen Wiedergabe und philologischen Kommentierung aller Faksimiles dazu) ist in Vorbereitung. Auch die detaillierte Analyse, Dokumentation und Interpretation von Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen in ihrem Gesamtumfang muss einer eigenen Publikation vorbehalten bleiben.



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Bremer, Józef (2013) „Ludwig Wittgenstein: ‚[…] my thoughts are one hundred per cent Hebraic‘“, in: Jan Woleński, Yaron M. Senderowicz und Józef Bremer (Hrsg.): Jewish and Polish Philosophy, Krakau/Budapest: Austeria, 24–59. Brusotti, Marco (2014) Wittgenstein, Frazer und die „ethnologische Betrachtungsweise“, Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter. Drury, Maurice O’Connor (1983) „Letters to a Student of Philosophy“, in: Philosophical Investigations 6, 76–102 und 159–174. Drury, Maurice O’Connor (1984) „Conversations with Wittgenstein“, in: Rush Rhees (Hrsg.): Recollections of Wittgenstein, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 97–171. Ernst, Paul (1910) „Nachwort“, in: Paul Ernst (Hrsg.): Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm, München/Leipzig: Georg Müller, Band 3, 271–314. Frazer, James George (1890) The Golden Bough. A Study in Comparative Religion, 2 Bände, 1. Auflage, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1900) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, 3 Bände, 2. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1907–1915) The Golden Bough, 12 Bände, 3. Auflage, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1922) The Golden Bough. Abreviated one-volume edition, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1930) The Myths of the Origin of Fire. An Essay, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1933) The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion, Band I, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1934) The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion, Band II, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1936) The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion, Band III, London: Macmillan. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1987) Werke. Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Herzogin Sophie von Sachsen. Weimar, 1887–1919. Nachdruck, München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Goodman, Martin (2007) Rome & Jerusalem. The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, London: Penguin. Hacker, Peter M. S. (2001) „Developmental Hypotheses and Perspicuous Representations: Wittgenstein on Frazer’s Golden Bough“, in: Peter M. S. Hacker: Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 74–97. Luckhardt, C. G. (1979) „Editor’s Introduction“, in: C. G. Luckhardt (Hrsg.): Wittgenstein. Sources and Perspectives, Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 15–16. McHale, Mary Elwyn (1966) Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Survey of Source Material for a Philosophical Biography, Washington D.C., MA-Thesis. Moore, George Edward (1954) „Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930–33“, in: Mind 63, 1–15 und 289–315. Moore, George Edward (1955) „Two Corrections“, in: Mind 55, 264. Moore, George Edward (1970) „Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930–33“, in: G. E. Moore: Philosophical Papers, 3. Auflage, London: George Allen & Unwin, 252–324. Ramsay, John (1888) Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, Band II, Edinburgh/ London: William Blackwood and Sons. Renan, Ernest (1923) Histoire du Peuple d’Israel, 5 Bände, 20. Auflage, Paris: Calman Lévy. Renan, Ernest (1894) Geschichte des Volkes Israel, übersetzt von E. Schaelsky, 5 Bände, Berlin: Siegfried Cronbach. Renan, Ernest (1886) Le Prêtre de Nemi. Drame Philosophique, Paris: Calman Lévy.

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Ricken, Friedo (2003) Religionsphilosophie, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (1996) Farbthemen in Wittgensteins Gesamtnachlaß. Philologischphilosophische Untersuchungen im Längsschnitt und in Querschnitten, Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (2011) „Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch als unverzichtbarer Initialtext seines ‚anthropologischen Denkens‘ und seiner ‚ethnologischen Betrachtungsweise‘“, in: Wittgenstein-Studien 2, 137–186. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (2013) „Zur Philologie des Kringel-Buches und seiner Verortung in Wittgensteins Œuvre“, in: Josef G. F. Rothhaupt und Wilhelm Vossenkuhl (Hrsg.): Kulturen und Werte. Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch als Initialtext, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 3–76. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (2015) „Zur Genese der ‚Philosophischen Untersuchungen‘ im engeren Sinne und im weiteren Sinne“, in: Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Volker Munz und Annalisa Coliva (Hrsg.): Mind, Language and Action. Proceedings of the 36th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg 2013, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 205–254. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F./Seery, Aidan (2001) „‚Ludwig Wittgenstein war ein „Stern“ in meinem Leben‘ – Interview mit Marguerite de Chambrier“, in: Wilhelm Lütterfelds, Andreas Roser und Richard Raatzsch (Hrsg.): Wittgenstein-Jahrbuch 2000, Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 113–143. Schulte, Joachim (1989) „Textnachweise“, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Vortrag über Ethik und andere kleine Schriften, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 141–142. Stern, David/Citron, Gabriel/Rogers, Brian (2013) „Moore’s Notes on Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933: Text, Context, and Content“, in: Nordic Wittgenstein Review 2, 161–180. Stern, David/Rogers, Brian/Citron, Gabriel (Hrsg.) (im Erscheinen) Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of George Edward Moore, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Westergaard, Peter K. (2013a) Mennesket er et ceremonielt dyr – Ludwig Wittgensteins Bemærkninger om Frazers „Den gyldne gren“, Frederiksberg: Forlaget Anis. Westergaard, Peter K. (2013b) „A Note on Part II of Remarks on Frazer’s ‚The Golden Bough‘“, in: Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, Volker Munz und Annalisa Coliva (Hrsg.): Mind, Language and Action. Papers. 36th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg am Wechsel, 11.–17. August 2013, Kirchberg, 456–458. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967) „Bemerkungen zu Frazers Golden Bough“, in: Synthese 17, 233–253 [= Synthese-Edition]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1971) „Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“, in: The Human World 3, 18–41 [= Human-World-Edition]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979a) Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, Gringley-on-the-Hill: The Brynmill Press [= Brynmill-Edition]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979b) „Remarks on Frazers Golden Bough“, in: C. G. Luckhardt (Hrsg.): Wittgenstein. Sources and Perspectives, Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 61–81 [= Harvester-Edition]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1989) „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough“, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Vortrag über Ethik und andere kleine Schriften, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 29–46 [= Suhrkamp-Edition]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000) Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.



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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2010) „Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough“, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, verbesserte 3. Auflage [1. Auflage 1993], Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 61–81 [= Hackett-Edition]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2011) Kringel-Buch. Recherchiert, rekonstruiert, arrangiert und ediert von Josef G. F. Rothhaupt, München: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München [= ProtoEdition].

David Stern, Brian Rogers, Gabriel Citron (Eds.)

Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E. Moore

Excerpt: Lecture 3b, May 5, 1933 and Lecture 4a, May 9, 19331

3b [9:1]

May 5 / 1933.

Certain class of topics connected with Ethics. I’ve talked about way in which one explains meaning of a word. But I haven’t talked about one problem: I’ve said that, though I compare use of words with a calculus, grammar with a game, yet we don’t generally think of the rules according to which the words we use are used, & we change our rules as we go along. E.g. if we speak of “Moses” & someone says “Who was Moses?” & we say “The man who led Israel through the desert”, & someone says “But he didn’t, someone else did”, then I may say “The man who performed the 9 plagues in Egypt”. Everyone would agree that definition of a word determines its meaning; but here we have different definitions, therefore a change of meaning. We should say “We meant something”; but what this points to is that the meaning isn’t anything that’s present when you say the word; & it also points to this: that, when people play with a ball, they follow certain rules, & it’s useful to compare this with usage of language, because in this

1 Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, George Edward Moore: Correspondence and Papers, MS Add.8875, 10.7.9, pp. 1–12. Lecture 3b, May 5, 1933, and Lecture 4a, May 9, 1933. In: Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E Moore, edited by David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. The book includes the relevant MS volume and page numbers in the margin; that information is provided in square brackets here. Digital scans of Moore’s lecture notes are available at Wittgenstein Source, www.wittgensteinsource.org, an online archive of primary texts by and about Wittgenstein maintained by the Bergen Wittgenstein Archive.

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way we can get rid of certain difficulties which arise when we believe that we are following a certain rule – falsely. Now people can say “Meanings of words are vague”. This [9:2] may mean that we haven’t fixed certain rules: e.g. whether if very tall & with very small top, we shall call it a table. If we compare a concept like “table” with a boundary, we can say the boundaries of actual usage are blurred. But we may, for certain purposes, draw a clear boundary & compare it with the blurred one. You can’t draw a precise boundary identical with the blurred one; only one like it in certain respects. There are harmless cases in which one can say: This word is used in so many distinct ways, & give them. But there seem difficult cases. E.g. “What is a “game”?”, you might say: let’s see what’s in common to all games, e.g. patience & football. But, if they have something in common, does it follow that we mean this, when we call so & so a game? Not at all. To explain “game” we might say “Like hockey, football & similar things”. Suppose there are gradual transitions of shape, having shewn a table, similarity will extend by gradual transitions indefinitely. But as in colours, you can use a word for red & its surroundings, another for blue & its, & then there will be nothing in common; but also you can use a word to cover all of them. If we wanted to lay down rules for “good” or “beautiful”2 or “game”; we should in different cases have to compare different games with that particular use. And if we ask why the same word is used in all these ways, the reason need not be that there’s anything in common, but that there’s [9:3] a gradual transition. The thing you say in the end may not be what you meant in the beginning, though it has a connection through gradual transitions. So in Mathematics: people thought of trisecting angle; then it was shewn that this was impossible. If I shew a man who has been trying to trisect, the proof of impossibility: in what sense could he say, That was what I really wanted? He could only

2 In his discussion of ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ Wittgenstein probably had in mind two symposia which took place at the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association in July 1932. The first consisted of three papers on “Is Goodness a Quality?” (Moore/Joseph/Taylor 1932); the second comprised three papers on “The Limits of Psychology in Aesthetics”, (Reid/ Knight/Joad 1932). In the subsequent discussion of these topics, Wittgenstein may be referring to Knight’s paper (9:28), and alluding to some of the others.



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say: you’ve led me to substitute one meaning for another – a meaning which takes the other’s place, in one or other of usual senses. One investigation may for lots of good reasons be the natural one to take the place of a completely different one. We sometimes use a word, & then give a definition. E.g. “force” was always used: but in physics a definition was given. Here a new concept replaced, for good reasons, the old one. This is connected with: We can’t find out meaning of “good”, by looking for what all cases have in common: even if there is something in common, we may never use “good” for that.3 You could name 4 activities, & then say: I’m going to call any activity except these 4, a “game”. What I’m driving at is: It’s not the case that (1) if we use a word for a whole range of things, it must be because they have something in common, nor (2) that we can say, the word = either this, or that, or that. There may be nothing in common between the 2 ends of the series. The way in which you use “good” in particular case is partly defined by the topic you’re talking of. [9:4] Each way in which A can convince B that x is good, fixes a meaning in which “good” is used – fixes the grammar of the discussion. When people say “This is a matter of taste”. Supposing I discussed with someone “What kind of flower will be the nicest in this window-box?”, the difference of taste needn’t be as simple as “I like this”, “You like that”.

3 “It will be admitted, I think, that the actions to which, in prospect or after performance, we apply the epithet ‘right,’ are very various; and that if one were asked what they have in common, in virtue of which we call them right, we should find it difficult to answer: so much so, that Prof. Prichard, while holding that each right action is made right by being of some definite sort – payment of a debt, maintenance of a parent, or what not – contends that we can say no more than this of it to justify our calling any action right. To me it seems that this makes of our obligations an ununified heap. I should like to find something common to the reasons why I ought to do this and that and that.” (Joseph, in Moore/Joseph/Taylor 1932: 132)

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there can be discussion of all sorts of kind, & then in the end you may come to something which might be called a difference of taste: e.g. Yes, you always prefer slightly stronger contrasts, I always prefer slightly weaker. One could say: Nothing would be more astounding, than if “good” had the same meaning always, considering the way we learn it. So it may be very difficult to find anything in common between 2 uses of “good”, but there will be gradual transitions from one to the other, which take the place of something in common. In the Golden Bough,4 Frazer constantly makes one particular kind of mistake in explanation. There have been 3 accounts of punishment (1) to deter (2) to improve (3) to take vengeance. But if you ask “Why does a father punish his son?” there may be none of them, or all 3, or something between 2 of them. In case of a community, Why is that crime punished? Who wants to [9:5] improve? Why do people go deer-stalking? In the case of one person, there may be many reasons & not necessarily one predominating. One main reason for preferring playing one instrument to another, may be the posture you take up in playing it. There’s a way of explanation, e.g. of why do people hunt, which says “This one thing is the reason”, & then, if you say “Not consciously” answers “Then unconsciously”. Frazer talks of Magic performed with an effigy, & says primitive people believe that by stabbing effigy they have hurt the model. I say: Only in some cases do they thus entertain a false scientific belief. It may be that it expresses your wish to hurt.

4 Sir James George Frazer The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Frazer 1922). For a discussion of which edition Wittgenstein may have used, see the notes to page 9:7 below.



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Or it may be not even this: It may be that you have an impulse to do it, as when in anger you hit a table; which doesn’t mean that you believe you hurt it, nor need it be a survival from prehuman ancestors. Hitting has many sides. Frazer also talks of festivals in which effigy of a human being is killed; & explains all as due to fact that once this was done to a man. This may be so; but it’s not true that it must. The experience of making an effigy & throwing in water5 has a peculiarity which may be satisfactory for its own sake: like tearing a photograph of an enemy.

4a [9:6]

May 9.6

Connection between Logic & what I was talking about. What I was trying to talk about last time was a propaganda for a descriptive method, rather than an explanatory. (When it’s said that Sciences don’t explain, of course, one thing they do is to explain in some sense.) I was talking of a tendency, characteristic of /which came along with/ European science, to give an evolutionary explanation: “This developed out of this”; & to add “This really is this”.7

5 See Frazer 1922: 311ff., and chapter 32, “The Death of Adonis”, pp. 335–341. 6 This set of notes is dated Tuesday May 9, instead of the usual day of the week, Monday May 8. The Monday was the date of the last of a series of pairs of lectures by Sir James Frazer at Trinity College. It is very likely that Wittgenstein moved his lecture so that he could attend Frazer’s lectures, published in Frazer 1934: 97–138, lectures 5 & 6. This information is taken from section 2 of Josef Rothhaupt’s contribution to this volume, which includes a detailed discussion of that history. The first references to Frazer are in the notes for the previous lecture; there are extensive discussions of Frazer’s Golden Bough in the notes for this week. 7 Moore sometimes uses large spaces around a word or phrase as a mentioning device, rather than the more familiar quotation marks. On other occasions, he does not use any means of indicating that a word or phrase is being mentioned. In such cases, when additional punctuation is needed to make a sentence readily comprehensible, we have added that punctuation in a grey font, just light enough that it can be distinguished from the regular black font if one looks carefully, but dark enough that it does not unduly draw the reader’s attention. This occasional use

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E.g. Frazer’s explanation of dressing up a stick, and drowning it, as a vestige of the custom of really drowning a man.8 It’s important to see that this needn’t be so, for one particular reason. The idea underlying this sort of explanation, that in the case of each action there is a motive which is the motive. I eat not only to nourish myself, but also because I get an agreeable taste or because … etc. etc.. E.g. there are lots of aspects of deer-stalking: not only the getting of food. Frazer says: Surely an effigy wouldn’t have been burnt, if there hadn’t been a man burnt. And goes on to explain: You kill the god of fertility, in connection with the annual death of vegetation. Essence is: People at a certain stage thought it useful to kill a person in order to get good crops, & from this developed habit of pretending to kill a puppet. The idea is: Action can only be explained, as having as its motive to [9:7] get something useful. But in fact: We don’t do everything, even in any degree, to get food etc.. If a man says we do, that is a mere rule of grammar. This view is very old, & is embodied in “essence” & “accident”. It’s the essence of so & so to be a table. And this is embodied in our language: e.g. to question “What is this?” we always answer: “It’s a book”, “it’s a pair of scissors”, “it’s a match”. It’s a queer thing that there’s one purpose of a thing so dominant, that we call it by the corresponding name; but this is not a logical necessity, & in some cases we don’t. E.g. we call so & so “A lump of sulphur”; but we don’t call a table “a piece of wood”. We say “The essence of this is to be a table”: it belongs essentially to class “tables” & only accidentally to others. So: there are theories of play, each giving one answer only to question: Why do children play?

of grey font allows the reader to easily determine what aspects of the text are editorial additions without being distracted by footnotes indicating these changes. We have not, however, imposed a uniform system of punctuation throughout the text. Rather, we have used the grey font sparingly to make additions only when they are truly needed to make the text accessible to the reader and easy to follow. 8 See Frazer 1922: 339–340.



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The tendency to do this is enormously strong. Return to Frazer: Surely, he says, one wouldn’t think of burning an effigy, unless one believed it was a human being, or unless one’s ancestors had burnt a human being. Chapter on Fire Festivals in Europe. Beltane Fires (May-day in the Highlands)9 In the Central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre, near Crieff, the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott. He says: “But the most considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day, which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with extraordinary ceremonies. … Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred years. But since the decline of superstition, it has been celebrated by the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning, and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which of old they kindled with tein-eigin – i.e., forced-fire or need-fire. Although, for many years past, they have been contented with common fire, yet we shall now describe the process, because it will hereafter appear that recourse is still had to the tein-eigin upon extraordinary emergencies.

9 At this point in the lecture Wittgenstein read aloud a passage from Frazer’s The Golden Bough. A second passage from The Golden Bough was read out during the next week’s lecture (Lecture 5a). Moore provides only very condensed summaries of these passages in his notes. The boxed sections contain the passages from The Golden Bough that Moore probably heard during the lectures. Wittgenstein most likely read from the one-volume abridged edition of The Golden Bough (Frazer 1922), rather than the complete twelve-volume third edition (Frazer 1911). While the differences between the abridged and third editions are very small in the case of this first passage, the passage that was read out in the following week’s lecture is so much longer in the third edition that it probably could not have been read out in full in the time available. See section 2 of Rothhaupt’s chapter in this volume for a detailed discussion of the textual evidence that Wittgenstein did not use the first or second editions.

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“The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed. “After kindling the bonfire with the tein-eigin the company prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge, called am bonnach beal-tine – i.e., the Beltane cake. It was divided into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company. There was one particular piece which whoever got was called cailleach beal-tine – i.e., the Beltane carline, a term of great reproach. Upon his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued. And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with eggshells, and retained the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was fresh in people’s memory, they affected to speak of the cailleach beal-tine as dead.”10

The most considerable Druidical festival is Beltane. On hills, because degrading to suppose god in a house, & near the sun. Cut a trench, build a pyre, & used to use forced fire (tein-eigin), & still do sometimes. All fires extinguished night before. For sacred [9:8] fire wood wimbles & board. 3 × 3 or 3 × 9 persons. People guilty of adultery or murder were supposed to prevent it kindling or to prevent it having its usual virtue. After kindling, they prepared food, danced round fire; master produced large cake (Beltane cake), which was distributed; & there was one piece, such that anyone who got it was called “Beltane carline”: & some tried to put him in fire, but he was rescued by others. Sometimes people pretended to quarter him.

10 Frazer 1922, chapter 62, section 4, pp. 617–618. Cf. Frazer 1915, volume 1, chapter 4, section 3, pp. 146–148.



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Frazer thinks this is a remnant of a feast in which a human being was burnt.11 But to say this fails to explain why the story makes an impression independently of its origin. It is queer that people should pretend to burn a man. It’s also queer that one particular piece of a cake should have this significance. The people who do it don’t believe that once a man was burnt. Hence it follows that pretending to burn is something which has its own feeling & its own seriousness. And, that in other cases a real human being was burnt, only shews that all sorts of different things exist side by side. So the alternative of 3 × 3, or 3 × 9, only shews what varieties there are. Cf. Darwin’s explanation of expression of emotions: Why do we shew our teeth when angry? because our ancestors wanted to bite.12 Why does our hair stand up when frightened? because our ancestors, like other animals, frightened their enemy by looking bigger.13 Why do lacrimal glands produce tears, when we’re in grief?14 [9:9] You can find out what nerves act on glands, & what makes nerves acts. But to give a reason why it was useful to cry, is something quite different: e.g. that there was a custom to throw sand, & tears were useful to wash it away. And what makes one want an explanation of this sort? Why does Darwin think that without it what we do would be unintelligible? Suppose one said, it’s unintelligible that tables should be combustible. But it may be intelligible that they should be made of wood, & it just be an accident that wood is. Now Darwin wouldn’t have thought an explanation of this sort required for every detail about our bodies. He thinks expressions of emotion need it, because he finds expressions are very important, & then thinks they can be important only if useful.

11 See Frazer 1922, chapter 64, section 2, pp. 652ff. “The Burning of Men and Animals in the Fires”. 12 See Darwin 1998: 238–241, 245–249. 13 See Darwin 1998: 295, 298, and 309. 14 See Darwin 1998: 175 and 193–194.

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The charm of the argument is that it reduces something that’s important to utility. (Important in sense that it impresses us.) What has this to do with methods of philosophising? If I could talk about Ethics, connection would be clearer. I was recommending “descriptive method” = method which tells you various things in right order = order which impresses you, without pretending to thread them on historical thread. The word “good”. I was talking about way in which meaning changes. One way of looking at Ethics is to say that meaning of “good” must [9:10] be what is common to all things we call “good”. So with “game”: I said this was far too simple. And also that, though this is wrong, it doesn’t follow that right thing to say is that it has several different meanings: for there may be a connection, though not that of having anything in common. The idea that there must be one element which all games have in common, is an old one; & e.g. underlies Plato’s question “What is knowledge?”15 or “τί ἐστι τὸ ὅσιον?”16. I have said “football, cricket & similar things” is a good answer to “What is a game”, whereas Socrates says “No”. This view of something common is connected with view, that a quality like καλόv17 is an ingredient in beautiful things: & could be sort of caught in a bottle by itself, like an essence. (This is “essence” in medieval philosophy.) Pure goodness, like pure sugar. Compare confusion between “mixture of pigments” & “mixture of colours”: what’s meant by a “mixed colour”?

15 See Plato, Theatetus 145e–146a (Plato 1997c: 162–3). 16 Greek: “Ti esti to hosion?”, i.e. “What is piety (or: righteousness, holiness, godliness)?”. See Plato, Euthyphro 5d–6e (Plato 1997a: 5–6). 17 Greek: “Kalon”, i.e. beautiful (or: fine, noble). See Plato, Republic 476a–b (Plato 1997b: 1102– 1103).



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“good” & “beautiful”. Supposing you say “good is a quality of human actions & events, & one can’t explain further what sort of quality”. Then ask: How does one know whether an action or event has it? (I don’t despise this question: it is connected with meaning, & way in which we learnt meaning.) Answer might be: Study the action, & you’ll find out; just as [9:11] you might study a thing to find out whether it’s steel or not. Now can I know the action in all its details, & not know whether it’s good or not? Is that it’s good one particular experience, like that it’s hard? Suppose I studied all the movements involved in a murder, & also all the emotions. Is there a particular experience which is that it’s good? separate investigation, having studied the whole action, whether it’s good or not? Take “elasticity”. If I want to find how elastic a rod is, I can imagine 2 ways: – (1) With a microscope I can see the structure, & can say it is elastic. But do I mean this structure by “elastic”? I might. But (2) I might investigate by pulling the rod, & seeing what happens. This might be what I mean, & the structure only a symptom. So with “good”. We might mean by “good” simply “action of this sort”: & if we say this is merely a symptom, then there must be some other way of finding out whether it has the character of which that is a symptom. How do I know that a face is beautiful? a visual impression of a face? If all the shapes & colours are determined, is it determined that it is beautiful? Is there, when I know what the shapes & colours are like, [9:12] another investigation as to whether it is beautiful? If it must be beautiful, then there’s a great confusion in calling beauty a quality – an indefinable quality. A table has the quality “brown”, only if it might have been “red” instead.

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Suppose τις18 says “No arrangement of colours is in itself either ugly or beautiful”. The beauty of a face is a particular thing, different from the beauty of a chair; though of course there are similarities, e.g. that both are agreeable. In different cases e.g. beauty of a face, of a flower, you are playing quite different games; & this is shewn by the way in which you can discuss whether the face is beautiful or not. If you want to know how “beautiful” is used: ask what sort of discussion you could have as to whether a thing is so. A says. “These eyebrows are specially beautiful”. B says “Aren’t they too far apart?” A replies “They might be too far apart, if the mouth had been so & so”. This shews they’re not talking about their feelings. But of course you sometimes are talking about feelings.

References Darwin, Charles (1998) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frazer, Sir James George (1911) The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Part I: The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, vol. 1, London: MacMillan. Frazer, Sir James George (1915) The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Part VII: Balder The Beautiful, vol. 1, London: MacMillan. Frazer, Sir James George (1922) The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. One-volume abridged edition, New York: Macmillan. Moore, G. E./Joseph, H. W. B/Taylor, A. E. (1932) “Symposium: Is Goodness a Quality?”, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 11, 116–168. Plato (1997a) Euthyphro, translated by G. M. A. Grube, in: Plato: Complete Works, ed. John Cooper, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1–16. Plato (1997b) Republic, translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve, in: Plato: Complete Works, ed. John Cooper, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 971–1223. Plato (1997c) Theatetus, translated by M. J. Levett, revised by M. F. Burnyeat, in: Plato: Complete Works, ed. John Cooper, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 157–234.

18 Greek: “Tis”, i.e. “someone”.



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Reid, Louis Arnaud/Knight, Helen/Joad, C. E. M. (1932) “Symposium: The Limits of Psychology in Aesthetics”, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 11, 169–215. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2016) Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E. Moore, edited by David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Early Remarks (Background)

Wilhelm Krüger

The Determinacy of Sense and Meaning Some Notes on Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Considerations” (MS 110: 214) from the Early 1930s for the Background of His Philosophical Investigations Abstract: The aim of this article is to provide more information about the philosophical background to Wittgenstein’s Remarks about Frazer’s Golden Bough, which he wrote during the summer of 1931 in his MS 110. In the manuscript volumes (MS 109–114i) that Wittgenstein later used for his Big Typescript, he discussed almost symptomatically the question of how the meaning of an expression can be determined. In those philosophical considerations he rejects any explanation of meaning and understanding by external (physiological or psychological) factors. By contrast, he reduces the connection between language and the world to internal relations alone. Although Wittgenstein was well aware of interpretation-regresses and rule-paradoxes (cp. MS 109: 281 / PI 201), he assumes here that the meaning of an expression can be determined by its explanation. The article argues that in light of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations this concept of “determinacy of sense and meaning” is not wrong, but incomplete, and that we have to understand his remarks from the early 30s as a work in progress for the background of his late philosophy.

1 I ntroduction The aim of this article is to provide some information about the philosophical background to the Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”, which Wittgenstein wrote in his MS 110 during the summer of 1931. MS 110 is one of the six manuscript volumes – 109 to 114i – that Wittgenstein wrote between completing the two TSS 210 and 211 in a period of approximately two years, from summer 1930 (11 August 1930) until summer 1932 (5 June 1932). This diary-like dated material1 was produced by Wittgenstein in several pocket notebooks (MSS 153, 155, 154 and TS 208). These volumes, which were never intended for publication, consist of approxi-

1  Cf. Nedo 2012: 9. In his “biographisches Album”, Nedo encourages readers to view Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings also as a kind of “accounting of his life”.

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mately 1400 handwritten pages with numerous corrections, deletions, insertions and overwritings. As he himself mentioned several times in these volumes, Wittgenstein considered them to contain preparatory work for a book2 – possibly for the so called “Big Typescript” (TS 213).3 In this TS, Wittgenstein placed many of the remarks originally made in these volumes in a new context, and he included an extensive table of contents. He also used parts of them in further scripts, not least in his PI. The problem I would like to use as an introduction to these early MSS can be shown by Wittgenstein’s own critique of his TLP view on the understanding of a sentence. How is it possible, asks Wittgenstein – for instance in MS 109 – to understand a sentence, when “to understand a proposition means to know what is the case, if it is true” (TLP 4.024). This can, according to Wittgenstein, … only mean that we know the rule according to which the sentence is to be controlled. But where does it say that it is to be controlled by this rule? The rule is merely added to the sentence, but where is its application to the sentence represented? Indeed, wherever it would be represented it would be by way of a “further” picture, and so we would arrive at (‘into’) an endless regress. […] But how can one speak of representation […]? (MS 109: 78)4

This subject is to be found in these volumes in different ways: “What is a sign and what is the meaning of a sign?” – “How can a sentence determine a fact?” – “What is the difference between a sentence and a mere scribble?” – “How it is possible to mean, to intend and to understand something?” – “What is a thought?” – “What is a plan?” – “What is a rule?” – “How can we follow it?” and so on. These different issues represent both the diversity and the unity of the remarks Wittgenstein is working with (cf. MS 109: 207). It is always the same face that is drawn here, as Wittgenstein noted in his MS 110: 69. And this face is for him nothing less than the face of “the essence of language” (MS 109: 53).5

2  Cf. e.g. MS 110: 214: “My book should / can / be called: A philosophical consideration. (As a head-, not as a subtitle)”. 3  A short overview of the genesis of the “Big Typescript” can be found in Krüger 1992: 303–313. 4  All MSS and TSS remarks are – unless otherwise noted – taken from BEE (1998–2000) and marked as in v. Wright 1982. Unless otherwise indicated, the translation of German passages into English was done by the author in collaboration with Nicole Gentz. The English translations from the Big Typescript are taken from BT, translated by G. Luckhardt and M. Aue (Wittgenstein 2005). 5  If we use the ambiguity of “a rule stands there like a signpost” from PI 85, to which v. Savigny (1988: 141) draws attention in his commentary on PI I, we get the picture of the essence of language in the form of a motto, written by Matthias Claudius, that Wittgenstein mixes in with his Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”. He writes in MS 110: 180: “Do you see the moon standing there? There is only half of it to see, and yet it is round, and fair [?/.]” (Translation by Emily



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Looking for the answer to questions like these in the volumes, we can find, on the one hand, answers that attempt to explain language. They postulate hidden processes to close the gap between sign and reality (cf. MS 109: 278 / PI 431), sometimes using a physiological and sometimes a psychological explanation. Wittgenstein addresses these positions inter alia in MS 109 against Russell’s (cf. MS 109: 198) and Ogden’s and Richard’s (cf. 109: 210) theory of meaning and, in PI 109, calls it a “pneumatic conception of thinking” with a source in MS 113: 42r. On the other hand we find Ludwig Wittgenstein – approximately 40 years old at that time – wanting to look at this question in a kind of “philosophical consideration” (MS 110: 214), as he mentions it in the title of the book he plans to write. For Wittgenstein there is nothing to explain with regard to meaning and understanding of language, and there is also no need to explain anything. Enlightened by, as he himself calls it in a conversation with Waismann, the “hellish idea” (WWK: 130) of his TLP that it is only analysis that uncovers the true meaning of a sentence, he finds hidden operations incompatible with our conception of the meaning and understanding of language. True to his old idea “Everything is carried out in language” (MS 108: 195 / June 1930),6 he looks for the answer to the representation problem in the grammatical rules for the expressions in which it is formulated. For Wittgenstein, the extraordinary difficulty of a philosophical consideration no longer resides in finding concealed processes, but in the fact that “nothing can be constructed, but that everything is already present and well-known” (MS 109: 15). For the philosopher, this gives rise to the strange situation of bringing forward what is already there and reacquainting us with things we already know. It is known that in his PI, Wittgenstein calls this “marshaling recollections for a particular purpose” (PI 127). The source to this remark can be found in MS 112: 118v, dated November 1931. In MS 109, Wittgenstein thus not only determines what “grammar” is for him at this time, but also develops a methodological criterion for his future investigations. The only possible solution to a logic problem is that which does not surprise us, for “where there is no surprise there is grammar” (MS 109: 115). Because, for Wittgenstein the whole enterprise of explaining our language is based on a misunderstanding of the use of our words, the task of a philosopher doubles for him, as we find in these volumes: what is needed here is not only truth about the use of our concepts, but also therapy. The road from the error to

Ezust). The “moon” represents a thought (expectation, desire, plan, intention, etc.), that stands there, while the half-moon we see is the expression (sign, image, table, arrow, facial expression, etc.) of a thought that we ‘have to complete’ (cf. MS 109: 278 / PI 501ff.) using our understanding. 6  Wittgenstein used this sentence constantly (ca. 10 times) in his Nachlass until MS 114, ii (1933/34).

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grammatical truth has to be taken (cf. MS 110: 58). The challenge Wittgenstein is confronted with in these volumes is to transfer a user’s personal dissatisfaction into – as we can say – objective satisfaction. The healing of a philosophical illness Wittgenstein promises his opponents (and of course himself) cannot be achieved without the truth about our use of language, and neither can it dispense with the user’s acceptance that we use language really in such and such a way. If both succeed, according to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems – in contrast to scientific problems – can completely be solved. Although Wittgenstein tries to defend his philosophical approach “in [his] fight with the language” (MS 110: 273), as he calls it, the manuscripts leave no doubt about the fact that he can be found on both sides of the barricade. What Waismann complains about in his cooperation with Wittgenstein7 can be seen in close detail in these manuscripts. Wittgenstein returns to the same problems again and again, and often without using his earlier results, surprised that he once again gets the same results.8 We owe to this unorthodox way of working not only countless ‘repetitions’, but also a large part of the remarks which he uses later for his PI; the remarks about expectations, orders and wishes (PI 442ff.), about ostensive definitions (PI 28ff.) and the regulation of general terms and proper names (PI 65ff.) and, last but not least, about philosophy (PI 89ff.), are examples of this. When, in the preface of his PI, Wittgenstein calls his remarks only “sketches” (PI: 3) and this book “just an album” (PI: 3), there are good reasons for us to see these volumes of the early 1930s, which allow us to follow his philosophical work almost step by step, as something akin to the film to this album. This ‘film’ can be shown here only in excerpts. In the first part of this paper I will present – by a chronological selection of remarks mainly from MSS 109 and 110 – a concept of determinacy of sense and meaning that is based on an explanation of meaning within a system of language, and the problems Wittgenstein faced at that time. I will then present, by way of a text-immanent interpretation of PI  189 and its context, a concept of determinacy of sense that is based on a common use of signs. In the last part of this work I will comment on Wittgenstein’s older considerations of determinacy before the backdrop of his more recent ones in his PI and speculate as to how much they have in common.

7  McGuinness quotes Waismann when he writes: “He has the marvelous gift of always seeing everything as if for the first time. But I think it’s obvious how difficult any collaboration is, since he always follows the inspiration of the moment and demolishes what he has previously planned” (WWK: 26; summer 1934). 8  He describes his approach in MS 109: “There are many problems one must first become familiar with by taking a run at them again and again. One then becomes acquainted with the taste of the problem” (MS 109: 276).



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2 D  eterminacy of Sense and Meaning through a System of Language The “causal theory of meaning” (MS 109: 73) is a perennial favorite in Wittgenstein’s manuscripts, and it might be the theory that most influenced him at this time.9 This theory assumes that the gap between an expression and an action can be closed by the effect of the signs on a user. It would be funny, muses Wittgen­ stein in his reservation against this theory of meaning, if an expression were to cause our actions, insofar it is for him contrary to the essence of language, contrary to the idea that we use the signs of language in a conscious way, in full knowledge of what we are doing. It is an illusion to think that there exists something like “philosophical signs” (MS 109: 77) that have the power to break down an explanation-regress by having a direct effect on the observers. Here Wittgenstein is also talking about “magic signs” (cf. MS 109: 77). The signs in a sentence must be understood; they “are not talismans […], which are supposed to cast a certain spell on the beholder” (MS 109: 77). Language interests Wittgenstein only as the motive of an action and not as its cause. – “The language does not tolerate”, writes Wittgenstein in the same context, “decorations, no psychological support” (MS 109: 78). For a logician who is interested in meaning, every sign is equally valuable. Furthermore, Wittgenstein sees no sense in looking for the thought of a sentence behind the signs – for a thought that is only alluded to in the sentence, like a signal. “If there were a more explicit way of expressing [a thought] we’d still have to be able to portray it in terms of the other one” (MS 109: 96f. / BT: 109). A thought, so Wittgenstein, is therefore “no secret – and blurred – process of which we only see hints in language” (MS 109: 99 / BT: 223). We have here always the great temptation to make the mind explicit (cf. MS 109: 209). The idea is to catch the thought (meaning), so to speak, in flagrante, as long as it is naked and without the misleading clothes of language. “Understanding is seen as essential, the sign as incidental” (MS 110: 238 / BT: 2). On 10 December 1930, Wittgenstein concretized the image of thinking and understanding as a hidden, inner machine-like activity:

9  Ter Hark writes about it: “Wittgenstein’s reaction to the psychological or causal theory of meaning […] illustrates a number of ramifications occurring in Wittgenstein’s thought in 1929 and the years after” (Ter Hark 1990: 25). And a few pages later: “One can […] conclude that the causal theory of meaning forms a crossroads in Wittgenstein’s analysis of individual psychological concepts” (Ter Hark 1990: 28).

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Thinking is not to be compared to the activity of a mechanism that we see from the outside, but into whose inner workings we have yet to penetrate. Because the part of the thinking that is not aware to us does not belong to it. (MS 110: 4 / cf. BT: 221)

There is no shortage of interpretation assistance to this thesis, for instance in MS  110:10 Thinking is essentially not an inner process (cf. MS 110: 2), not a digestive process in a closed room (cf. MS 110: 4). A thought is not a product of thinking (cf. MS 110: 2). A thought as a physiological or psychological process is not part of logic (cf. MS 110: 2). This would ultimately mean to make the contents of a thought dependent on a scientific research program, on a program which examines an inner process to find out what it means “to understand” (cf. MS 109: 38). But as we know, “I understand” is not used as a hypothesis about a physiological process. And in so far as this is valid for everything logic deals with, every process in a certain sense for Wittgenstein, “an outward process” (MS 110: 2) is. It is not surprising that, in MS 110, Wittgenstein describes the method for his research as behaviorist (cf. MS 110: 53). Using the metaphor of an account book, Wittgenstein shows clearly in MS 109 where he thinks to find the determinacy of language, a sentence and a thought (cf. MS 109: 129). The determination is not to be found in hidden processes, but in the grammatical rules of the language to which the expressions of the thought belong. The essence – e.g. of negating – is expressed in grammar as early as 1930 (cf. MS 109: 96 / PI 371). Wittgenstein exchanges the external relations that are based on hidden processes for the publicly accessible internal relations of grammar. Beside the thought, the expectation is one of his favorite examples to show this in MS 107, 108 and 109: here, he argues extensively in favor of the hypothesis that the relationship of expectation and fulfillment cannot be represented by way of descriptions (cf. MS 109: 53), but only through common expression. He stresses the logical (internal) relationship between the expectation and what is expected, naming the problems resulting for the explanation of the language use. On 28 August 1930, Wittgenstein makes the following remark on his work on the subject of “expectation and event” in his MS 109: I wanted to look at expectation and event from the outside in order to see what constitutes their similarity, their shared characteristics, their remarkable relationship. And if I really look at them (looking at the expectation as expectation and not only as something imagined) I can only say that the event fulfills the expectation.

10  The first 30 pages of MS 110 are part of MS 109 in a chronological order.



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But I don’t want to leave this answer at that. (MS 109: 59)

This admission applies not only to MS 109. Wittgenstein had, since the early 1930s, been preoccupied with the idea of looking at the relationship between thought and reality not from the outside but, against all inner resistance, as “an internal description” (MS 107: 259). A number of remarks in MS 107 and MS 108 and in the resulting TSS 208, 209 and 210 show this clearly.11 His hypotheses on the relationship between expectation (thought) and fulfillment (reality) in MS 109 are thus not new, but well prepared by the early MSS, indeed in some cases presented in more detail than here. Wittgenstein’s approach in MS 109 is therefore quite forceful. That, because of a common expression, “an expectation and its fulfillment make contact” (PI 445) in language is one of many remarks about the grammar of “expectation” in the PI that appears in MS 109: 60 in August 1930. And Wittgenstein now highlights that we are dealing not only with a psychological peculiarity of our language, but indeed with a function that is essential to it (cf. MS 109: 62). Two things are achieved by this: on the one hand Wittgenstein has defended language (a thought) as being publicly accessible and in this way as an object of philosophical research. It is impossible for anything other than what is laid down in grammar to play a role in the meaning of a sentence and in the thought (expectation) that it expresses. On the other hand this gives him the challenge that will occupy him for the next years: What determines the thought, the meaning and the understanding of a sentence if the function of a language is laid down in its internal relations that can only be described by signs that are interpretable in many ways? How can we get the meaning of the signs? Wittgenstein’s response to this problem in the manuscripts is a postulate: What I want to say is that a sign in some sense cannot be explained. It must speak in the rules for its use for themselves. It has to say everything, by giving every possible (clear) explanation. (MS 109: 93)

Wittgenstein makes clear that a language that has said everything that can be said has informed about everything (cf. MS 109: 97). “So that everything we can meaningfully ask for has to be explained and no question for a further explanation can be left” (MS 109: 104) notes Wittgenstein on 6 September 1930. And he

11  See on this e.g. MS 107: 256ff. (Jan. 1930) and MS 108: 212ff. (July 1930) and the remarks that follow from this in TS 209: 10ff., TS 210: 34ff.

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never tires of emphasizing that we cannot and must not go beyond the limits of language in a language (cf. MS 109: 48; MS 109: 79; MS 109: 97). About the consequences of this for his concept of grammar, Wittgenstein writes on 11 September 1930: So what I really want to say is: There is no such thing as grammar as well as an interpretation of signs. Rather, in so far as one can talk about an interpretation, i.e. an explanation of signs, it is grammar itself that has to take care of it. For I’d need only ask: is the interpretation to take place using sentences? and in what relationship are these sentences supposed to stand to the language they create? (MS 109: 129 / BT: 58)

On 3 February 1931, Wittgenstein concludes his MS 109 with one, as he says, “simple answer to our long troubles” (MS 109: 298). The difficulties that he hopes to bring to an end and with which he struggles throughout MS 109 are based once again on the insight that interpretations alone cannot determine the meaning of an expression. Wittgenstein’s formulation of this on page 281 of MS 109 reminds us of his paradox in PI 201: Anyone who does anything is following a rule; indeed, there must surely be a rule that corresponds to what he is doing (MS 109: 281).

Wittgenstein wonders how it is possible to understand a sentence in a certain way, to express a thought or to justify an action with it, if every sentence can be interpreted in different ways. His answer on the last three pages of this MS 109 is a grammatical note on the use of the word “determined”. Wittgenstein writes: For nothing can be more determined than the kind of determination achieved by an accurate description. Because “to determine” can only mean describing something. And this is very important. (MS 109: 298)

An “accurate description” here means “to use the system of language in an exhaustive way”. It is nonsense to look further for the determination of the meaning of a sentence if the meaning of the sentence is already completely explained in the system to which it belongs. According to Wittgenstein, someone who is looking for the meaning of a sentence expects merely an explanation. Wittgenstein formulates this idea similarly in PI 503 with a source in MS 109: 200. The possibility of misunderstanding which is postulated by Wittgenstein’s opponent as an argument against any language expression collapses with Wittgenstein’s criticism of his opponent’s use of terms such as “indeterminate”, “definitely”, “misunder-



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standing”, etc. The demand for the determination of a sentence is meaningless if we consider a sentence to be still undetermined even when it exhausts all the possibilities of determination of a language system. In his early manuscript volumes, Wittgenstein follows the practice of underlying his results with a philosophical commentary. He does so here as well: All difficulty of philosophy can only be based on misunderstandings. A discovery is never needed, can never be needed to dissolve them. It is a misunderstanding and can only be solved as such. (MS 109: 298)

To make the reader aware of this kind of determinacy of language, Wittgenstein in his quotation emphasizes that such determinacy does not entail “making a discovery”12 (MS 109: 298). He does not call this result “a solution” of the problem, but its “resolution” (cf. MS 109: 298). The problem of the determinacy of the sense of language expressions is exposed as a spurious problem by the reference to a question which, as Wittgenstein shows again and again in MS 109, in principle cannot be answered. If we take Wittgenstein at his word, then – at the end of MS   109 – the problem of the indeterminacy of sense and meaning that he discussed page by page in MSS such as 107, 108, 109 and 110 no longer exists. It is resolved by a grammatical move (cf. MS 109: 171, 197 and 299). To defend this strong thesis, Wittgenstein mentions several times in MS 109 the connection between this problem and the question “does another person really see the same color as I do when he sees blue” (MS 109: 299) or does it refer to something known only to him? (Cf. PI 273.) Can we ever know what color impression the other has, or is he the only one who can know this? Wittgenstein’s answer is not that we can only accept the other’s opinion of what he sees, but that the question does not even ask whether the other sees “in itself” the same color as we do. For Wittgenstein, we have a grammatically vested right to claim that what the other sees is “the same as what I see” if we base the claim on the “usual method” (MS 109: 299). The question cannot be understood in any other sense. It is important to see that the way in which Wittgenstein rejected these questions is paradigmatic for this period of his philosophy; we can learn a good deal about the status of the question from Wittgenstein’s response. Wittgenstein reinterprets what was apparently still an open question, difficult to answer yet most philosophically relevant, as a misunderstanding regarding the use of the term “to see the same

12 “Discovery” really should here be “empirical discovery”. In MS 111 Wittgenstein writes about a “grammatical discovery” (MS 111: 2 / BT: 265r).

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color”.13 In analogy to this, it is nonsense to look further for the determination of the meaning of a sentence when it is already completely explained in the system to which it belongs. Finally, Wittgenstein examines critically the sentence to which he devotes most of his MS 109. Does it make sense, Wittgenstein asks, to say that a sentence determines a fact? He now wonders quite self-critically whether he has moved the problems of understanding too close to the mechanical portion of a sewing machine,14 misled by the statement that a sentence determines something and, by this, is doing something very special. (cf. MS 109: 300)15 That is why the proposition – viewed as an intermediary between sentence and action – gained an early reputation of resembling a mechanical connection by which we can explain how propositional signs determine facts and how we determine facts with signs. Wittgenstein writes about this later in his PI: “A misunderstanding makes it look to us as if a proposition did something strange” (PI 93). We are, so Wittgenstein one remark later, “sent […] in pursuit of chimeras” (PI 94). By referring to the mechanics of a sewing machine, Wittgenstein argues against a causal explanation of the meaning of a sentence, and he gives an example for this kind of discovery that is never needed in philosophy (cf. MS 109: 298). To ask for more than a verbal explanation is a consequence of the misunderstanding – which was cleared up earlier – that philosophy has to deal with functional explanations, with a special kind of “how questions”. Wittgenstein’s counter-argument at that time is that the usage of language cannot be explained (functionally), but is already presupposed in all that is to be said (cf. MS 109: 166ff.). Against this background, it is not surprising that Wittgenstein demands that “the whole language must speak for itself” (MS 109: 294), and that from now on he makes only conditional use of the question “How can a sentence determine a set of facts?” At the beginning of his MS 110, he already presents this idea in a pejorative form known from PI 435: “How does a thought sentence manage to represent?” (MS 110: 33) Wittgenstein is now working with the sentence according

13  This idea was already spread in the Vienna Circle by Moritz Schlick ”under the influence of W i t t g e n s t e i n” as Victor Kraft (1968: 42) reports. 14  Wittgenstein’s early interest in sewing-machines reports Wittgenstein’s sister Hermine (1984: 1): “By the age of ten, [...] Ludwig was already so familiar with the construction of a sewing-machine that he was able to build a small model of one out of pieces of wood and bits of wire, which actually sewed a few stitches”. 15  These remarks conclude MS 109. We find the last part of the last sentence of MS 109 on page 31 of MS 110.



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to his philosophical mandate from MS 110: 34: “to bring words back from their metaphysical to their correct usage in the language” (cf. PI 116).16 As we have already seen, the plan to transform a thought (as the meaning of a sentence) into language – according to Wittgenstein’s philosophical and therapeutic method – succeeds only if there is no longer “dissatisfaction”, but “satisfaction” (MS 109: 79) about the limits of our expressions; if there is no longer the impression that there is something that we cannot explain. “The solution of the puzzle” (MS 110: 59), as Wittgenstein calls it, that language can only be described with language itself, has to be accepted as the solution. If one does not accept a thought as “applied language”, one will not understand the arguments that are based on this. Only if the user of the expression is satisfied is his problem completely resolved (cf. MS 109: 79) for him. Wittgenstein’s remarks in MS 110 about “the grammar of the expression, ‘the order is obeyed’” (MS 110: 95) show that he himself was not satisfied with his results.17 Wittgenstein formulates his dissatisfaction now with a further remark similar to his paradox in PI 201: to obey a rule cannot only mean to obey a rule, “for this”, so Wittgenstein, “happens whatever I do” (MS 110: 92). “To obey a rule” can only mean to obey a rule (agreement) that is established in advance. But this cannot mean that we pronounce the rule before we follow it, nor can “obeying a rule” mean that multiple operations follow this rule. In this case – according to Wittgenstein at this time – the rule would be no more than an empirical sentence – and what we have to do would not be determined by it (cf. MS 110: 93). The order would be the cause and not the motive for the actions of those who had to follow it (cf. MS 110: 94).18

16  Wittgenstein writes in PI 116 B: “to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday usage”. 17  Wittgenstein attempts to explain the process of understanding a sentence here inter alia by a visual experience (cf. MS 110: 89). This does not get him any further, as what is seen must also be understood. 18 “A note preserved in Sraffa’s hand”, makes it clear that Sraffa has quite divided these concerns, which Wittgenstein writes down in February 1931. Sraffa writes: “If the rules of language can be constructed only by observation, there never can be any nonsense said. This identifies the cause and the meaning of a word. – The language of birds, as well as the language of metaphysicians can be interpreted consistently in this way. […]” (WC: 196) When this remark, which the editor assumes was “obviously intended to be shown to Wittgenstein in the course of their discussions”, was written remains uncertain. Under the headline “Note from P. Sraffa, [January–February 1932]” McGuinness dates it, “by reference to Sraffa’s being a lecturer ‘last year’ – his Assistant Lectureship ceased on 30 September 1931 – and by reference to Sraffa’s thoughts on this topic in Wittgenstein’s manuscripts”. While Wittgenstein’s note on Sraffa in MS 113 (cf. our footnote 28) is written on 20 February 1932, the remarks above in MS 110 are written on 18

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In so far as we can only describe the execution of an order, but not anticipate it, there are, according to Wittgenstein at that time, “no criteria [for] the action that obeys the order” (MS 110: 94); also, as Wittgenstein later claims a little bit more reservedly, “we cannot speak about such a criteria” (MS 110: 94). Here Wittgenstein adds the question of how we can then know that we have or have not followed an order? He answers this in his MS 110 first with a confession: I cannot find the central grammatical mistake on which all the problems are based. (MS 110: 95)

Then, some pages later and in accordance with his previous remarks, he notes with apparent serenity: this problem can only be based on a misunderstanding of the grammar of our language. The explanation of our thoughts that Wittgenstein is looking for cannot result in more than their verbal representation. The step to the limits of our language is finally for Wittgenstein under this assumption no reason for dissatisfaction, but rather a guarantee that the problem is dissolved “as a piece of sugar in water” (MS 110: 99). “If I am right”, says Wittgenstein here, much like in the preface to his TLP,19 “then philosophical problems really must be solvable without remainder, in contrast to all others” (MS 110: 98f. / BT: 421). While the use of verbal signs (“secondary signs”) is normal in language, the use of “primary signs” such as gestures, images, patterns, and tables seems to be something special. For one thing, we believe that with primary signs we can leave the realm of language; we also think that it is not possible to misunderstand them (cf. MS 112: 112r; cf. BT: 47v). So it is no surprise that primary signs play a special role in Wittgenstein’s philosophical considerations about determinacy at that time. He discusses these signs at different places in his MSS. In MS 110, for instance, he points out a misleading use of ostensive definitions, claiming that this misunderstanding arises because primary signs can sometimes be the very objects that we, with the help of the signs, are talking

February 1931, on the same day on which Wittgenstein wrote a letter to Sraffa: “Dear Sraffa, I am expecting you in my room on Friday about 7.45 as our Hall begins at 8. – Yours Ludwig Wittgenstein”. And he added “I want to talk with you about vivisection. I think it is closely related to the things we are talking about” (WC: 191). The letter is presented here with the date “18.2.1931”; it was a Wednesday. – So it’s not impossible that this note was written approximately one year earlier as it is dated by McGuinness and that Sraffa was more deeply involved in Wittgenstein’s problem, as seems to be the case from his anthropological ideas elsewhere in the Nachlass (cf. MS 113: 25rf.; MS 117: 172). 19 “I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved. And if I am not mistaken in this, […].” TLP: 29; Preface from 1918.



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about. For example: because we can actually eat the primary sign for “bread” – the loaf of bread we are pointing to – but not the sounds that make up the word “bread” that we are trying to explain by pointing to the loaf, the sounds and the letters are, for us, reduced to the function of mere representatives. They become secondary and no longer fulfill our needs in terms of the “meaning” of signs. What we want then is not only the symbols but what they ‘correspond to’ in reality. This is how Wittgenstein puts it: / This problem [of the meaning] is equivalent to confusing a word or expression with a proposition that asserts the existence, the being, of an object. (MS 110: 275 / BT: 368).

This creates the misunderstanding that an object bearing a name is also its meaning, and that we cannot talk about this object if we use only signs and do not somehow have it in our presence as well. Wittgenstein eliminates this misunderstanding by passing “from unobvious nonsense to obvious nonsense” (PI 464). By claiming that if “‘he must be around, if I am looking for him’ […] then he must also be around if I don’t find him, and even if he doesn’t exist at all” (PI 462), he proposes the loveliest of nonsense that can be found anywhere in the PI with a source in MS 110: 274. Wittgenstein’s 1931 remarks about primary signs in MS 112 (Oct.–Nov. 1931) go far beyond a therapeutic treatment of the topic. Wittgenstein now exacerbates his questions about understanding by applying them to the expressions with which we explain and justify our language use: the expressions of the rules of language. If “primary signs” were really things that does not need to be understood, we could teach and explain our language with the help of these signs.20 Right at the beginning of his investigation, Wittgenstein leaves no doubt about the fact that – for him – every sign can be misunderstood. From a logical point of view, there is no difference between the signs we call “primary” and the verbal signs we call “secondary”. In Wittgenstein’s view, “primary” and “secondary” are merely psychological categories; we therefore have to use the terms “primary” and “secondary” in response to the language being used or the person we are speaking with. Furthermore, “primary signs” cannot be used to force someone to understand an order in a certain way. With respect to primary signs, Wittgenstein also says, “I can call everything and don’t have to call anything ‘guidance’. – And in the end I do what I do and that is all” (MS 112: 113r / BT: 186). Also in the game with the

20  We have seen that Wittgenstein had established as early as MS 109 that the entire language must speak for itself, as the determinacy of a sentence cannot be explained by the fact that speakers use the grammatical rules according to which it must be used (MS 109: 280–297). Nevertheless, he returns to this problem once again here.

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primary signs “the chain of reasons comes to an end” as Wittgenstein writes, “at the limits of the game” (MS 112: 113v). If all reasons are exhausted, we get the well-known “This is simply what I do” (MS 112: 113v) of PI 217. Here it is only possible to speculate about the cause of our actions, and no further reason for these actions can be given. This brings up an unpleasant question about this random demolition of the justification process: if we have no rule of the game that can inform us on what action is in accord with it, how can it be decided what action is in agreement with the game and what not? “And where does the game end and where does it begin?” (MS 112: 114r / BT: 187) Wittgenstein is committed at this point to the claim that games cannot exist if there are no rules according to which they are played. “It’s a game if it follows a rule. But what is still a rule and what no longer” (MS 112: 114r / BT: 187f.) Wittgenstein asked in November 1931.21 The result is a dilemma. Because I cannot produce the rule in any other way than through its expression; for even examples, if they are to be examples, are an expression of the rule just like any other expression. […] And if the rule is a table, then I can’t guarantee the way the table is used […]. I can only establish this by way of a further table or by way of examples. These examples don’t carry me any further than they themselves extend […], and the second table is in the same situation as the first. (MS 112: 114rf. / cf. BT: 188)

On the one hand it is only a game if the signs are used in according with a rule; on the other hand it is impossible to determine the use of signs by the expressions of their rules because expressions – of any kind – are interpretable. Wittgenstein repeats his well-known problem: … the table gives me no guarantee that all of its links are the same, for it doesn’t force me always to use it the same way. It’s there like a field criss-crossed by paths, but I can also walk cross-country. With each application I make a new link in the table. The link is not, as it were, made once and for all in the table. (The most we can say is that the table seduces me into making the link.) (MS 112: 115rf. / cf. BT: 57)

Once again Wittgenstein rejects the idea that the table as a primary sign would anticipate its use. Here as well, “I do what I do” (MS 112: 113r); “with each application I make a new link in the table” (MS 112: 115rf.) “and that is all” (MS 112: 113r / BT: 186). I could say, writes Wittgenstein, that I am not spared the jump from the

21 “Now one can ask”, writes Wittgenstein, now rather rhetorically, “but is it really still a game if someone sees the letters abbc and does just any old thing?” (MS 112: 114r / BT: 187)



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sign to the action, even though everything is prepared for it (cf. MS 112: 103v). Beside the logical point of view, Wittgenstein brings into play the aspect of the experience we have with tables. That a table has a specific use is no guarantee that it provides me with a correct explanation. According to Wittgenstein, this means that “what scheme gives us the easiest jump [from a sign to its action] is an empirical matter” (MS 112: 103v / cf. PI 85). Wittgenstein concludes his considerations of primary and secondary signs on page 117r of MS 112. Uncertain about the meaning of his analysis of primary signs, he transfers the following two comments from his pocket notebook MS 153b: 3r to MS 112: Of what kind is my statement about the table that it does not force me to use it in such and such a way? And: that the use is not anticipated by the rule (or table)? Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important. (All the buildings, as it were, leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) (MS 112: 115v / cf. BT: 411, PI 118)

The progress of Wittgenstein’s investigations in MS 112 shows the importance of this result and how serious it is. One page further, Wittgenstein notes in nearly the same words he used to comment on the regulation of general concepts and proper names: Let’s have a look at the rules of our language If somewhere we find no rules that is the result. (MS 112: 116vf.) 22

It is clear that at this point the research is no longer about a misunderstanding that is relevant only for a psychologist. Furthermore, it is not only about the empirical fact that we can find concepts as ‘plant’ that are not limited everywhere by rules. Wittgenstein’s “result” is once more about the logically relevant question of whether every system of signs is – in principle – incompletely regulated. If so, the danger exists that language will lose its function and its normative power and obeying grammatical rules will become arbitrary. Wittgenstein’s philosophical intention at the beginning of the 1930s – to explain the function of language in an internal way by finding its grammatical rules – is threatened by these remarks

22  In his early work on the concept of “family resemblances” (PI 67), Wittgenstein, in MS 111, comes to a similar result in connection with the use of the term ‘plant’: “I am undertaking the establishment of the list of rules for our language: Now what am I to do in a case like that of the concept ‘plant’? Should I say that for this or that case no rule has been established (“aufgestellt”)? Certainly, if that’s the way it is“ (MS 111: 86f. / BT: 250).

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in his MS 112. It is thus possible that at the end of his investigations in the early 1930s, as he himself expressed it, “only bits of stone and rubble” (MS 112: 115v / PI 118) are left.

3 D  eterminacy of Sense and Meaning through a Common Use in the PI It is well-known that the issue of the determinacy of sense and meaning that Wittgenstein could not solve in his early writings is a central problem in his PI. He mentions it, for example, when he speaks of ostensive definitions (PI 28ff.), patterns (PI 73), drawing a cube (PI 74), sign-posts (PI 85), tables and table reading schemes (cf. PI 86), images and formulas (PI 140ff., PI 185f.) – and of course in the remarks about following rules (PI 185–242) and in his considerations regarding private language (PI 243–315). Not to forget all the notes about “expectations”, “wishes” and “orders” later on in this book, which lead him to the famous question about the life of signs in PI 432. Wittgenstein’s unproblematic use of illustrations, for example in PI 1, PI 6, PI 37, PI 51, PI 562, shows that it is not a practical problem he is dealing with here. It is, as he describes it in PI 85, a logical or philosophical problem. In the following paragraphs I will attempt a text-immanent interpretation of PI 189 and its context, where Wittgenstein once again discusses the concept of determinacy, but this time with a different result than what we find in the manuscripts of the early 30s. In PI 185–PI 190, Wittgenstein discusses whether the meaning of a formula (“y = x ²”) is determined by the expression of the formula. Or, to use a phrase similar to that used in PI 85, where Wittgenstein talks about the meaning of signposts, he asks whether the steps are determined by what “stands there”. As the starting point for the discussion of what determines the meaning of a formula, he focuses on a misunderstanding about the application of the term “+2” occurring between a teacher and a student, who – as we know from earlier remarks – is already familiar with the basic set of numbers (cf. PI 143–150). The well-known beginning is here an order in PI 143, which prompts the student to “write down series of signs according to a certain formation rule” (PI 143). In PI 185 it is not possible – even with good words – to make him understand that his use of “+2” is not what we mean with this expression. This time it is not possible to make him continue the series as we do it (cf. PI 185) – even though he successfully managed a similar task in PI 145 “after some efforts on the teacher’s part”. Wittgenstein’s remarks about the behavior of the student in PI 186 leads to two questions. What is necessary for an individual to follow an order, and how is



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this possible? Is it a new insight (intuition) or a decision? (cf. PI 186A). Wittgenstein rejects the intuitive way of following rules. Later on, in PI 232, he rejects a “kind of inspiration” as rule-following in connection with his statements on the “physiognomy” (PI 235) of “following a rule” (PI 235). The second challenge now is to know what is crucial so that we can say with reference to an order (“+2”) that it has been correctly followed (cf. PI 186). The text turns from understanding the order (1st pers. sing.) by the (incorrigible) student to the meaning of the order (3rd pers. sing.) as intended by the teacher (cf. PI 186). In PI 187 and PI 188, Wittgenstein shows that mental processes play no role for the issue of understanding by the student, nor with regard to the meaning intended by the teacher: the knowledge of the application of a series is not a mental state. Wittgenstein’s argumentation here runs partly parallel to that in PI  147–PI 148. His argument is this: neither “knowing” nor “meaning” is a kind of thinking of something (cf. PI 692). Anyone who claims that he had all the steps in mind while he was giving the order cannot seriously mean that he was thinking of all the steps he meant at the same time. We can find the same thought in the last remark of the PI: we can mean p without thinking of p (cf. PI 693). PI 187 claims that the person who means something special with his words or understands them in one way or the other would have reacted to the question in a certain way. Wittgenstein makes this idea clear by using a comparison in PI 187: a person who means such and such should show particular reactions under particular conditions. For instance, we jump into the water if someone who can’t swim falls into it (cf. PI 187). Only a fool would jump into the water before someone falls in. Such a conditional as a criterion of meaning can also be found in PI 684: “I would have given a particular answer then, if I had been asked”. At this point we can also mention PI 78, where Wittgenstein uses the hypothesis that to know how a clarinet sounds means to recognize the sound when played on it in order to refute the idea that knowing something is connected to the ability to explain something. What would still “almost be more correct to say”, in PI 186, namely that “a new decision was needed at every point” to carry out the order ‘+n’ correctly, seems to be already (mostly) wrong against this backdrop (cf. a. PI  219). – What we can find in PI 188 is “a mythological description” (PI 221) of the use of “+2 “, and this in the same way as Wittgenstein talks about it later in his PI. Because the steps are determined, a person who is familiar with them in a way described in PI 187, regardless whether he is doing “them in writing or in speech or in thought” (PI 188), gets the erroneous impression that “the steps are really already taken”, that they are “in some unique way predetermined” (PI 188). Later, in PI 219, Wittgenstein translates the sentence “All the steps are really already taken” with “I no longer have any choice”, and even there as an expression of “how it strikes me”. The meaning of the sentence “The steps are really already

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taken” is an answer of the question “how do we follow a rule?” The answer is: We “follow the rule blindly” (PI 219). Here Wittgenstein gives us a picture of the process of how it is possible to obey a rule. After it has become very clear in what way the steps are not determined by the algebraic formula, the frustrated opponent continues with the question of whether “the steps [are] then not determined by the algebraic formula?” (PI 189A). Wittgenstein’s answer is that “the question contains a mistake” (PI 189A); in Wittgenstein’s own words: “In der Frage liegt ein Fehler” (PI 189A).23 The mistake that the question contains is what the question leaves out for it to be answered. The question is not wrong (“useless”, “false”), nor does it “involve some sort of error”,24 but it is incomplete (“defective”).25 Wittgenstein’s point in PI 189 is not to reject for a second time the misleading idea of a “mental mechanism” (PI 689) of intention. Rather for Wittgenstein it should now be clear: you cannot ask for the determination of an expression without referring to a group in which the term is used. We call an expression “determined” only when people use it in the same way, that means, where a majority “take the same step at the same point” (PI  189B). The question is thus not meaningless but incomplete. The defect of the question is that it leaves out the group it is referring to. With this description of the grammar of “determined”, Wittgenstein here strikes two birds with one stone: if all according to their training make the same step when reacting to “+3”, then it is not only determined what a student has to do at (for example) a next step, but also in what way all sorts of steps can be meant, without having thought of them first. In other words: what we have here is a criterion to decide and to justify which step in reaction to the order “+3” is the right one, and which one is not. And of course (yet again) we understand how the student is able to do these steps from the expression to the required action: as a result of his training, he does this blindly. The question about the determination of an expression is therefore a question about a common constant behavior (reaction) within a ‘group’. If we add this to the question in PI 189, we can not only distinguish between a group in which the steps are “determined” and another in which the expression has no meaning (PI 189B), but further we can distinguish between different kinds of formulas (meanings) connected to different kinds of training in one and the same group as Wittgenstein presents it in PI 189C.

23  Wittgenstein uses the remark “In der Frage liegt ein Fehler” several times in his Nachlass. My interpretation is about PI 189; but I cannot exclude that it can also apply to other remarks. 24  Cf. Hilmy 1991: 97. In PI 189 Hilmy finds one of the ‘tormenting questions’ of PI 133. 25  My interpretation of this remark applies better to the original German text than to the English translation.



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In PI 190 Wittgenstein makes very clear that there is nothing wrong with the idea that the meaning of the formula determines what steps are to be taken if we have the right understanding of the verb “meaning” (“meinen”): For example that “the kind of way we always use” (PI 190) an expression determines what we mean with it. Meaning in this way is not an individual or a mental process. The meaning of a sign anticipates a common (public) understanding of the sign, in so far as we mean only what will ‘always’ be understood. In other words: it is here the understanding that determines the meaning. To understand “meaning” in this way means to subordinate one’s own use of signs to a common practice.26 – In this way Wittgenstein does not exclude the use of unknown signs as “’x!2’” (PI  190). On the contrary: he formulates the conditions for their use. Only where we can refer to signs that are already determined (in use), can we give our own signs a new meaning and explain it to others. Or we can, as in the case of the student, describe his actions as wrong, referring to our use of words. We can say what we want, but we mean what we say and what we say belongs to our use, regardless of whether we are speaking to others or to ourselves. Here is where the circle to the remark PI 185 is closing: the teacher is right in his attempt to explain the formula and the pupil has something to learn from us; if he wants.

4 Two Sides of the Same Coin In April 1932 Wittgenstein wrote in English about his “philosophical work” in his pocket notebook MS 154: “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy” (MS 154: 25r). According to our understanding of his early MSS, this, at the very least, is an exaggeration. Wittgenstein attacks the idols (“Götzen”) of ultra-physics and metaphysics, as he calls them (cf. MS 153a: 164r / MS 112: 113v), but not only in a destructive manner. On the contrary: he postulates a public system of language, where thinking, meaning and understanding are at home. For Wittgenstein, “language” is only that “about which a grammar can be written” (MS 110: 296). “The sense of a proposition isn’t soul-like; it’s what is given as an answer to a request for an explanation of the sense” (MS 113: 42r / cf. BT: 81). There can be no doubt about the development of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language in the MSS of the early 1930s. Many sources to remarks from the PI that are written in this period are a good proof of this; Wittgenstein’s many remarks about philosophy are particularly impressive.

26  Cf. v. Savigny (1988: 235ff.) in his commentary on the PI: “Kapitel 4 PU 198–PU 242 Wie das Befolgen einer Regel festlegt [How obeying a rule determines]”.

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In this period, Wittgenstein has not yet found the “central grammatical mistake” he writes about in his MS 110. The reason for this may not only be the fact that Wittgenstein, in his philosophical intention of excluding all external relations from language, misses his aim, or that his own philosophical strategy is in his way and prevents him from continuing his grammatical investigations. Later, in MS 115, Wittgenstein writes about “a strange and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigations: the difficulty – I could say – lies not in finding the solution, but in recognizing as the solution something that looks as though it is nothing but a preliminary step to it” (MS 115: 61, cf. MS 110: 266 / BT: 372). But the actual difficulty, I think, lies rather in the picture that he had of language at that time, and moreover in the perspective this picture is based on. In his therapeutic efforts to bring a metaphysical use of words like “meaning” and “understanding” back to the right use in language, he views language and grammar as a calculus, that is, “as a process […] that follows fixed rules” (MS 111: 67 / cf. BT: 258). He carries out his investigation on the basis of an existing language, i.e. on the basis of his everyday language. Because the signs of this language already have a meaning, it is obvious that by “meaning” he understands something “that we explain in explaining the meaning of a word” (MS 109: 140 / BT: 37); later enclosed in double codes in PI 560. It is natural to discuss the point of whether we have to get the meaning of an order before we can follow it, and that Wittgenstein thinks about the rules of language as something based on agreements.27 In addition, Wittgenstein’s inside perspective of language gives him a concept of understanding that stresses – in analogy to his concept of meaning – the user’s possibility to explain an expression by moving within the system of his language. So what someone takes who understands the sign that someone else has given him “is a step in a calculus” (MS 110: 296 / BT: 157). On the other hand, he now knows that the user of a language ultimately has to act (to follow rules) without the possibility of using further explanations. We have found remarks about this e.g. in MS 112 and later on in PI 217. A formulation of Wittgenstein’s problem resulting from this view of language in the 1930s can be found in PI 189. In other words: the opponent’s question about determinacy of a formula in PI 189 can be seen as that of the early Wittgenstein. And in analogy to PI 189A can we formulate the answer as well: the early Wittgenstein remarks about determinacy are not wrong, but they deliver an incomplete picture of our language. Nobody can deny that

27  In MS 109, he uses the expressions “Wörterbücher”, 63; “Übereinkommen”, 64; “Abmachung”, 64; “Vereinbarungen”, 65. Later on, in BT: 235v, he adds (by hand): “We’ll profit by comparing grammatical rules to agreements (Übereinkommen)”, while later in PI 241 he speaks of “agreement” in the meaning of “Übereinstimmung”.



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the statement on which Wittgenstein at this time bases the determinacy of sense and meaning and his whole philosophical method are right: “If the meaning of a sentence is completely determined, it makes – in a logical way – no sense to ask for further explanations” and: “Questions that cannot be answered in principle must be rejected”. And that means, “when the system is endowed with the right degree of […] multiplicity diversity [‘Mannigfaltigkeit’]” (MS 109: 278), an order is determined. No question remains. This is true to his early slogan that “what isn’t necessary in logic isn’t useful” (MS 109: 294). Following this view, we leave the system of language (cf. MS 109: 170) as little as we have found it in PI 189C, where Wittgenstein presents “different kinds of formulas” opposing each other. Here the expression of an expectation is only in so far undetermined as “it contains a disjunction of different possibilities” (PI 465 / cf. MS 109: 171). Obviously, in the early 1930s Wittgenstein understands the questions about the determination of a sentence within the meaning of PI 465. – What remains to be asked? Wittgenstein’s remarks about the “incomplete regulations of games” in MS  112 show that there has to be another concept of determinacy too, a concept of determinacy which is not based on explanations of expressions. We have seen that Wittgenstein – at the latest with PI 189 – shows what it consists of: the common reactions of the users can stop an explanation and justification regress and determine the meaning of signs. The meaning of an expression here is the result of the behavior of the users, who always use the sign in the same way according to “customs”, as Wittgenstein mentions in PI 198.28 Wittgenstein’s “as things are” in PI 20429 can be interpreted as an indication of this link between his earlier and later remarks on meaning and understanding. As things were for Wittgenstein in the early 1930s, and of course also later, games and languages can be invented, arrangements about language use can be made, mathematical series continued, misunderstandings about language cleared up, because “mankind” (PI  204) according to Wittgenstein in PI I, has these traditions in the form of usages and institutions and customs (cf. PI 198). This relates of course very much to the possibility of explaining unknown signs as we have found it in PI 190 and to the fact that – as things are for us – “a command that is unambiguous is clear for us; and there is no clearer one” (BT: 90). According to Wittgenstein, without these institutions we cannot even intend, for instance, to follow an order (cf. PI 205B). The use of language that Wittgenstein explicitly assumes in his earlier writings (cf. MS 109: 200) includes the use of customs, although he does not discuss the

28  For an extensive presentation of the Wittgenstein concept of rule-following in the PI, cf. Puhl 1998: 119–142. 29  PI 204: “As things are, I can, for example, invent a game that is never played by anyone”.

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customs. These anthropological remarks on language uses in the PI are the basis of Wittgenstein’s philosophical program of the 1930s. For the background of these concepts of “use” (PI 190) and “customs” (cf. PI 198) in the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language in the early 1930s seems to be oddly devoid of humans. While in the PI a user’s activities are constitutive for their meaning, the users of this time now seem to have degenerated to a psychological or experiential factor, of no interest to the logician. Although for Wittgenstein at this time a sign has a purpose only within the context of human society, a logician does not have to bother about this purpose (cf. MS 110: 29). Wittgenstein even describes the learning and setting of the grammatical rules of language as uninteresting to the extent that the way we learned language is not contained in its use, as little as a cause is contained in its effect (cf. MS 110: 81 / BT: 175). Wittgenstein’s concept of rule of the early 1930s shows how much less important the users of language are for him at this time. He gives several examples of this. A rule of chess is not “a proposition about how people have played since the game was invented” (MS 113: 22rf. / BT: 240). “1 m is the length of the standard metre in Paris” says nothing about the length of an object (cf. MS 113: 23r / PI 50), the legend accompanying a map says nothing about the geography of a country (cf. MS 113: 23r), and the laws of a country say nothing about whether people obey them (MS 113: 24v). A rule corresponds to something he calls “a propositional radical” (MS 113: 27v). “And it is characteristic of the nature of our investigation” writes Wittgenstein, “that we are not interested in the propositions that (can) be formed with this radical” (MS 113: 27v / BT: 244 / cf. PI:  14). It is of utmost importance to Wittgenstein that a grammatical rule cannot be a report, “because otherwise the sense of the proposition would somehow also contain the sense of the report about the use of language” (MS 113: 26v / BT: 243); in the same manner as for us, writes Wittgenstein in a response to Sraffa in MS  113, law books cannot be understood as books on the natural history of man (cf. MS 113: 25rf.).30 Wittgenstein summarizes his position (rule concept) in his MS  113 on page 29v:

30  Wittgenstein places the name “Sraffa” in parentheses in front of his comment. – Already in January 1931 Wittgenstein draws the attention to the possibility, that “grammar is nothing but the description of the actual use of a language” (MS 109: 281) and that “the rules of chess could be taken as propositions that belong in the natural history of man. (As the games animals play are described in books on natural history.)” (MS 109: 282 / cf. BT: 408) – That he did not think much of this idea, becomes clear from the chapter heading under which he placed these remarks in his Big Typescript (1932/33): “Philosophy Points out the Misleading Analogies in the Use of our Language“ (BT: 408).



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What I am calling a ‘rule’ must not contain anything about a particular (or even general) time or place for its application, and must not refer to particular people (or people in general); it is to serve only as an instrument of representation. (MS 113: 29v / BT: 246)

While Wittgenstein gives up his inside perspective on language of the early 1930s in favor of an outside view – in the PI – that focuses on the group behavior of the users,31 as we see in PI 189, he takes away the authority from the system.32 By the turn in PI 189 it is no longer the system of signs that decides how to follow it. Now it is the user’s understanding that determines the meaning and not the other way round, as it is in the early 30s. As long as the change of perspective in PI 189 – from a functional calculus (see PI 189C) to the practical usage of signs in different groups – is not accomplished, the question of the determination of our expressions seems to be meaningless and tormenting from the perspective of the early Wittgenstein, who discusses them from the inside of our language. And it is incomplete from the outside as long as we cannot identify a group that is accustomed to the use of the sign, as Wittgenstein writes in 1936 in an early formulation of PI 189 (cf. fragment 178e).33 The “life” of the sign is no longer dedicated by him to “grammar” alone, as we can find it in MS 109,34 but to our behavior as well. This standpoint of PI 189 is prepared in the Philosophical Investigations by the comparison of our behavior with that of Martians in the context of PI 139, and by a comparison of our behavior and that of the abnormal pupil as found in PI 185. The student that falls out of our group because, by his very nature, he understands the command in a completely different way than we do (cf. PI 185) draws attention to the dependence on the group not only of understanding and meaning, but also of therapy. Indeed, Wittgenstein’s early idea of a therapy which has succeeded when satisfaction about the use of words has been reached can be understood only before the backdrop of his later remarks. The idea of therapy seems to be

31  In his article “Wittgenstein’s Anthropological and Ethnological Approach”, Hacker refers to a remark in which Wittgenstein points to “the ethnological approach” of this perspective: “In July, 1940 Wittgenstein wrote ‘If we use the ethnological approach, does that mean we are saying that philosophy is ethnology? No, it only means that we are taking up our position far outside, in order to see things more objectively’ (MS 162b, 67v)” (Hacker 2009: 15). 32  The framework conditions for this provides Wittgenstein in the PI with both his concept of “family resemblances” (PI 67) and of rules as implicit in our practices (cf. e.g. PI 198ff. and v. Savigny 1988: 237). 33  This remark, written on a 1936 calendar page, is probably one of Wittgenstein’s first notions of usages and customs in connection with obeying a rule. Fragment 178e can be seen as one of the sources for PI 189. 34  On 24 August 1930, Wittgenstein writes in MS 109: “/ That is clear: grammar is the life of the propositional sign” (MS 109: 40).

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incomplete as long as we can’t base the use of language on a common education (training), as suggested in PI 189, that brings the satisfaction of every single user in agreement with a common language and the form of the user’s life (cf. PI 241). The fact that Wittgenstein, in MS 110: 95, uses the term “central” for the grammatical mistake that he has at last detected in his PI underlines that there is a systematic connection between the grammar of “determination” as “explanation” and all the other remarks about “understanding”, “meaning”, “rule”, “justifying” and so on in his philosophy in the early 1930s. For the grammar of concepts like these, the concept of “use” is not everything, but they seem to be nothing without it. Without the concept of a common use, a sign without a meaning is not even a sign without meaning. And that means that we need to differentiate between the determination of a sentence within the living system of a language as a question about the multiplicity of a system and its possibilities for describing the world, and on the other hand the use that gives the system its meaning. These are two complementary sides of one language.35 Wittgenstein gives ‘a sign of life’ of this ambivalence of language in PI 432.36 On their own, the signs appear to be dead. They live in the grammatical rules of the calculus that dictate the language user how to use them. And indeed the use (understanding) by the speakers confirms the meaning of the signs.37 In this way the grammar of a language can bee understood normative as well as descriptive. We have seen that we can find the first position in his early writings and both positions in his PI.38 In PI 241, Wittgenstein shows that both sides are compatible.39 The apprehensions we found in MS 113 in connection with Wittgenstein’s concept of rules have not proved justi-

35  Cf. PI 203. 36  Wittgenstein writes in PI 432: “Every sign by itself seems death. What gives it life? – In use it lives. Is it there that it has living breath within it? – Or is the use its breath?” 37  Westergaard (2013: 83) seems to mean something similar when he speaks – with reference to a Motturi (2003) quotation – of “two variables” that coincide in a grammatical description: “‘Grammatikken er hos Wittgenstein på en og samme gang det som må beskrives, dvs. den sproklige praksis’ locus, og det som – omtalt i personifikationens form – beskriver tegnets betydning eller den måde, hvorpå det anvendes i sproget’ (Motturi 2003: 185)”. 38  Cf. Lugg (2013: 142f.), who writes “that the conception of language as a calculus is still in play in the manuscripts (and the Investigations §§1–189). […] What is problematic is not the picture of language as a calculus but the picture of ‘something that lies beneath the surface’, something that philosophers can prise out (§90/§92)”. In opposition to this finds Glock in the development of Wittgenstein’s work a “gradual abandonment of the calculus model” (Glock 1996: 70). Also Schulte (1989: 114) speaks of a “gradual rejection of the calculus model”. 39  Wittgenstein writes in PI 241: “What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.”



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fied. The agreement of language use is not an additional opinion that is added to the meaning of a sentence about which one can debate, but its unspoken background (“the silent background of our language”). In Wittgenstein’s early writings, language, “tormented by questions which bring itself in question” (MS 112: 47v / PI 133), takes the form of a calculus about whose rules he explicitly says that they can be debated to the extent that these debates (differences of opinion, “Meinungsverschiedenheit”, “Streitfrage”; MS 109: 249) can be eliminated by explanations. For according to Wittgenstein’s postulate of November 1930, “the explanation of the symbol must bear the entire responsibility for its use” (MS 109: 248f). With this in mind it is possible to structure Wittgenstein’s work – the Philosophical Investigations as well as the whole Nachlass – chronologically and thematically by using his remarks about the use of language as milestones.40 We can also explain how the very early remarks (for example about commands, expectations, wishes) with their sources in 1930 match the newer ones in the PI. Last but not least, this interpretation of his early writings invites us to propose an overall hypothesis about the development of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in general: if we look at his Nachlass as a work in progress, we can see that he is moving from a system of language to the humans who are using it; in other words, his philosophy becomes more and more anthropological. Looking at Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” from the early 1930s from this point of view we find on the one hand much agreement between Wittgenstein’s thoughts on symbolic actions (practices, rites, ceremonies) and his remarks on the philosophy of language from the same period.41 In the same way as we cannot explain the grammar of our language we can’t explain religious rites. The rules of our language are autonomous and “not accountable to any reality” (MS 110: 216). Ceremonial acts are like our language, neither can be justified by causes. Like the grammar of our language “no opinion serves as the foundation for a religious symbol” (RFGB: 122), neither a wrong one – as Frazer considers – nor a right one (cf. RFGB: 122); and certainly not a scientific one. Here, as there, we can find groundless actions. Each request for an explanation of a religious action is opposed by Wittgenstein by his “concept of perspicuous representation” (RFGB: 132 / MS 110: 257). Also in relation to the acts of magic “one can only describe”, as Wittgenstein writes, “and say: this is what human life

40  Cf. for example PI 116, PI 337, PI 432 and of course PI 185–242. 41  For a detailed presentation of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” see “The Awakening of the Human Spirit” (Brock, in this volume) and Rhees 1979: “Wittgenstein über Sprache und Ritus”.

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is like” (RFGB: 120). “Don’t think, but” (PI 66), “laugh, if you can” (RFGB: 122), one can formulate here in accordance with PI 66. On the other hand, do these anthropological reflections on “the life and behavior of mankind throughout the world?” (RFGB: 128) as Wittgenstein expresses it, with their focus on the practices of the savages, appear as an early shift in perspective, as we have mentioned it in connection with PI 189. Furthermore, these “practices” (RFGB: 118, 120, 126, 142, 144, 146, 150) of course are reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s “gloss on the grammar of the expression ‘to follow a rule’” (PI 199) in the PI. But we also see that in the early 1930s Wittgenstein was still unable to use the normative potential of his Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” in this respect. Neither was he able fully to utilize the remark of Piero Sraffa,42 he himself mentions with praise in the introduction to the PI, for the problems discussed in this paper.43 In accordance with our interpretation of PI 189 it is more likely that it was initially mathematical considerations that led him to expand his exploration to the meaning and understanding of a language.44 To summarize all these problems of determinacy of sense and meaning from the early 1930s under the label “All just misunderstandings!”, as Wittgenstein suggests in several of his remarks, seem themselves to be a misunderstanding, and could at the time have misled Wittgenstein more than they might have helped. We cannot rule out that it was precisely the ambiguity (“Zweideutigkeit”) of expressions like “determine”, which he himself points to in one of the sources of PI 189,45 that he was confused by at this time. Wittgenstein describes his situation at the beginning of the 30s within the context of his statements on following orders by a remark; he wanted to preface all the others: “I could choose” so

42  Cf. footnote 16. 43  Engelmann (2013: 174) comes to the same conclusion with respect to the Big Typescript when he notes: “Wittgenstein, in the Big Typescript, is still reluctant to accept Sraffa’s anthropological view and denies that the distinction between the technical and the legal book, ‘depends on what kind of role they play in life’”. 44  In late July 1931, Wittgenstein writes in MS 111: 61: “How do I really know that [(-]x)fx follows from fa]? – Because that is how I calculate”. And in MS 153b: 2v he writes in English: “The foundations we mean pervade rather than underlay mathematics & the sciences”. Both remarks are not transferred by him into his subsequent writings.– PI 189 probably comes into play here as well. Wittgenstein used PI 189 later as a link between his remarks about language in TS 220 and his mathematical remarks in TS 221. He begins with the text of PI 189 in TS 220 and finishes it in TS 221. PI 189A appears in both TSS. 45  In MS 118 (1937), Wittgenstein writes: “But are the steps then not determined by the algebraic formula? – The question contains a mistake. Or I can say that it is ambiguous (“zweideutig”). How do I use the questions of whether steps are determined by a formula?” (MS 118: 88vf., cf. MS 117. 1)



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Wittgenstein, “as a motto for my book: A fool can ask more than ten wise men can answer. Actually it should be “ten clever men” (MS 109: 288 / 31 Jan. 1931). It seems on the one hand that Wittgenstein at this time can be seen as the clever men for whom the difficulties discussed here must appear foolish, because there can be no solution to them from the inside view of the language. Whereas the wise men take the seemingly meaningless questions of the fool as an invitation, to withdraw from the current situation and to develop another view to look at language. 46 Looking back from the PI the Wittgenstein of the early 30-years appears as a still too clever man who was on the way to becoming a wiser one. The anthropological Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” of 1931 can be understood as one step on this way. 47

References Glock, Hans-Johann (1996) A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford. Engelmann, Mauro Luiz (2013) “Wittgenstein’s ‘Most Fruitful Ideas’ and Sraffa”, in: Philosophical Investigations, Volume 36, Issue 2, 155–178. Hacker, P. M. S. (2010) “Wittgenstein’s Anthropological and Ethnological Approach”, in: Jesús Padilla Gálvez (ed.): Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, Frankfurt a. M., 15–32. Hilmy, S. Stephen (1991) “‘Tormenting questions’, in: Philosophical Investigations section 133”, in: Robert L. Arrington and Hans-Johann Glock (eds.): Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, London/New York, 89–104. Kraft, Victor (1968) Der Wiener Kreis, Wien – New York. Krüger, Wilhelm (1993) “Die Entstehung des ‘Big Typescript’”, in: Klaus Puhl (ed.): Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Mathematics. Papers of the 15st International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg am Wechsel, 303–312. Krüger, Wilhelm (2008) “‘In der Frage liegt ein Fehler’ – Überlegungen zu Philosophische Untersuchungen (PU) 189A”, in: Alexander Hieke and Hannes Leitgeb (eds.): Reduction and

46  Just two weeks before Wittgenstein wrote this motto he made a note in his diary (MS 183) about his own cleverness: “There is a tendency in my life to base this life on the fact that I am much cleverer than the others. […] But when this assumption threatens to break down, when I see by […] how much less clever I am than other people, only then do I become aware how wrong this foundation is in general even if the assumption is or were right (DB: 65 / 16.1.31). While he was writing about his wisdom e.g. in a letter to Sraffa from 15 March 1939, in which he complained “how narrowly bounded” (WC: 301) Sraffa’s understanding was. Wittgenstein commented on this estimation with the words: “I hope this doesn’t sound as though it were meant as an advice from a wiser man to one less wise” (WC: 301). 47  The author would like to thank Nicole Gentz, Aidan Seery, Deirdre Smith, Josef Rothhaupt and Lars Albinus for comments and inspirations.

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Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences. Papers of the 31st International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg am Wechsel, 184–186. Lugg, Andrew (2013) “‘Wittgenstein in the Mid-1930s’, Calculi and Language-Games”, in: Nuno Venturinha (ed.): The Textual Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, London, 135–153. Motturi, Alexander (2003) Filosofi vid mörkrets hjärta, Wittgenstein, Frazer och vildarna, Göteborg. Nedo, Michael (2012) Ludwig Wittgenstein – Ein biographisches Album, Munich. Puhl, Klaus (1998) “Regelfolgen”, in: Eike von Savigny (ed.): Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophische Untersuchungen, Berlin, 119–142. Rhees, Rush (1979) “Wittgenstein über Sprache und Ritus”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Schriften. Beiheft 3, Frankfurt a. M., 35–57. Savigny, Eike von (1988) Wittgensteins “Philosophische Untersuchungen”: Ein Kommentar für Leser, vol. 1, Frankfurt a. M. Schulte, Joachim (2005) Ludwig Wittgenstein. Frankfurt a. M. Ter Hark, Michel (1990) Beyond the inner and the outer, Dordrecht. Von Wright, Georg Henrik (1982) “Wittgensteins Nachlass”, in: Georg Henrik von Wright: Wittgenstein, Frankfurt a. M., 45–76. Westergaard, Peter (2013) Mennesket er et ceremonielt dyr, København. Wittgenstein, Hermine (1984) “My Brother Ludwig”, trans. M. Clark, in: Rush Rhees (ed.): Recollections of Wittgenstein, Oxford – New York. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1981) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C. K. Ogden, London. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1984) Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, Indianapolis, 115–155. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998–2000) Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2003) “Movements of Thought: Diaries, 1930–1932, 1936–1937”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Lanham, 3–255. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2005) The Big Typescript: TS 213, ed. and trans. C. Grant Luckhardt and Maximilian A. E. Aue, Malden, MA/Oxford/Carlton. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations / Philosophische Untersuchungen, ed. P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte. Malden, MA/Oxford. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2012) Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Letters and Documents, 1911–1951, ed. Brian McGuinness, Malden, MA/Oxford.

Mauro L. Engelmann

The Faces of ‘Necessity’, Perspicuous Representation, and the Irreligious “Cult of the Useful” The Spenglerian Background to the First Set of Remarks on Frazer Abstract: I aim at making clear the background to Wittgenstein’s first set of remarks on Frazer and at explaining how the remarks should be understood in context. In order to achieve my goal, I will elucidate Wittgenstein’s assessment of Spengler’s work. On the one hand, I will try to make it apparent that Wittgenstein was a severe critic of Spengler and that deep disagreements underlie their views; on the other hand, I will elucidate how and why Wittgenstein’s thoughts were, as he says, “completely in touch” with many of Spengler’s thoughts before he read him. So I will argue that Spengler’s ‘influence’ does not introduce fundamental new ideas into Wittgenstein’s philosophy, but broadens and articulates his old views on “our time” and “our culture” (some of those views can be traced back to the Tractatus and some to Wittgenstein’s Middle Period). The elucidation of the Spenglerian background will make clear why Wittgenstein thought that it was important to criticize “the real foundations” of Frazer’s inquiry. Incidentally, it will indicate why Wittgenstein’s “religious point of view” is at odds with the “cult of the useful” of “our civilization”. Und das Schweigen war so laut, dass es fast schon Sprache war. (Karl Kraus: Schweigen, Wort und Tat)

Introduction: On Understanding the Remarks on Frazer1 Wittgenstein wrote two sets of remarks on Frazer: one in 1931 (in MS 110) and another, according to Rhees (see RFGB: 115), after 1936. One cannot take for

1 When citing Frazer’s Golden Bough, I use the abridged version, instead of the earlier editions

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granted that they have the same goals, for their contexts are quite different. In this paper I will only deal with the background and context of Wittgenstein’s first set of remarks. The understanding of these remarks in context, however, is a complex task, for it involves many aspects of Wittgenstein’s thought: his views on language, logic, culture, art, progress, science, and religion. I begin with some desiderata for the understanding of the remarks (a kind of map of what needs to be understood) in order to indicate the scope of this paper. First, one should be clear about how they relate to Wittgenstein’s confessed influence of Spengler. Given the temporal proximity of remarks on Spengler and Frazer, and a similarity of topic, the movement of thought behind them might coincide. Second, one should endeavor to understand how the remarks on Spengler and Frazer are related to Wittgenstein’s early philosophy and its “worldview”. This can only be achieved once we are clear about at least part of the results of the Tractatus, i.e., the progression of thoughts in Tractatus 6n that ends in the silence heralded in the last aphorism.2 Third, one should try to elucidate whether specific issues prompted Wittgenstein’s interest in Frazer’s book, i.e., why he read Frazer and why he thought it was important to criticize him. Fourth, one must examine how those remarks relate to Wittgenstein’s lack of satisfaction with “our civilization”. This is a very complex issue, for it relates to Kraus’ and Nestroy’s critiques of modernity, Tolstoy’s, Dostoevsky’s, and Kierkegaard’s religious views, Spengler’s and Keynes’ views on Russia, ethics, and religion. Fifth, one should understand how the remarks on Frazer are related to a long remark on Renan (MS 109: 200–202; CV: 5–6). This is relevant because both, Renan and Frazer, assumed a similar picture of the cultural progress of modernity and primitiveness of religion. Sixth, one should examine how the unpublished preface written at the end of 1930

of Frazer, because it is easier to handle. In any case, it is not clear how much of Frazer’s work Wittgenstein actually read before writing the first set of remarks. Drury says he “got the first volume of the full edition” (CW: 119) and that he read from it. This, of course, does not mean that Wittgenstein did not read other volumes or even other editions of the book. 2 After Diamond 1996, it has been thought that the conclusion of the Tractatus is TLP 6.53, 6.54, and 7. However, Wittgenstein does not say that those propositions constitute the conclusion. In fact, such an idea does not fit the number system of the Tractatus. 6.53 and 6.54 are elucidations of 6.5, which says that the riddle does not exist. Moreover, 6.5 must be connected with 6, the general form of propositions: it helps to elucidate the significance of 6. Strictly speaking, the conclusion of the book is that one must remain silent in philosophy (7). Presumably, in order to understand why one must look at what brings Wittgenstein (or the author of the book) to it. In this paper, I do not intend to explain the whole conclusion of the Tractatus, i.e., the whole reasoning behind 6n and 7, but only to look at what in this reasoning is more relevant for a better understanding of Wittgenstein’s remarks on Spengler and Frazer.



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(MS 109: 205–212; CV: 6–8) relates to the remarks on Frazer that he writes in 1931 and the typescripts dictated between 1931 and 1933, i.e., TSs 211, 212 and 213. The most interesting issue here is that both, the 1930-preface and the first set of remarks on Frazer, are not included in TSs 212 and 213 (Big Typescript). Seventh, one should elucidate how the remarks on Frazer connect with Wittgenstein’s idea of language as a calculus and his ‘new method’, ideas introduced at the end of 1930 and beginning of 1931, i.e., at the time when most of the remarks on Frazer were written. One of the traits of Wittgenstein’s new method is to uncover false analogies that mislead us (Engelmann 2013: chapter 2). It is interesting to observe that Frazer’s reasoning in The Golden Bough is fundamentally analogical. Eighth, one must also elucidate how the first set of remarks on Frazer is related to the second set and to the “anthropological view”, which Wittgenstein develops, I think, after 1933 (see, for instance, the Brown Book, where the growing complexity of language-games is introduced by means of interactions in certain ‘tribes’). The first set of remarks might indicate clues for the understanding of the application of the anthropological view introduced later. Ninth, one should examine how Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer is related to his “religious point of view” and his appreciation of the gospels. It is important to take into account that a result of Frazer’s causal-evolutionary explanation is that Christian rituals must be considered superstitious instances of the “primitive mode of thought”.3 Tenth, one should investigate whether Wittgenstein’s views concerning Frazer and religion constitute a personal view that is compatible with his Early, Middle, and Later philosophies.4 Finally, eleventh, what exactly are the details of Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer and why they are important? The literature on the remarks on Frazer has paid more attention to desiderata nine and eleven.5 Even if, arguably, those are the most important of the tasks

3 Jesus as “God’s lamb” is analogous to scapegoat cases, i.e., the “transference of evil”: “the accumulated misfortunes and sins of the whole people are sometimes laid upon the dying god” (GB: 624). See also GB: 416–418, where Frazer talks about the “heathen origins of Christmas” and the resurrection of Christ and Attis; see also comments on the “blood and body” of a deity and “eating the god” (GB: 566–578). 4 Richter (2001) suggests that one should distinguish Wittgenstein the man and the philosopher in order to avoid the attribution of a dogmatic religious view to the philosopher. I won’t deal with the details of this difficult issue in this paper, but only suggest a way to look at it in the Tractatus. Talking in a personal way, as in a confession, might be the only way to talk undogmatically about ethics and religion. This is the way Wittgenstein speaks in his Lecture on Ethics (see WVC: 118). In this paper, sections 1, 2, and 3 are mostly concerned with views that are part (or results) of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and sections 4 and 5 mostly with his personal views. 5 See, for instance, Cioffi 1998, Johnston 1991, Clack 1999, Bouveresse 2007, Hacker 2001. What is new in the recent literature is a more systematic treatment of Spengler’s influence. Cahill

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above, they seem to require a better understanding of the others. In this paper I intend to fulfill the essentials of desiderata 1–5. Topics related to the other desiderata are taken into account, but are only cursorily discussed. In order to bring desiderata 1–5 together I follow clues concerning the peculiarity of Spengler’s ‘influence’ on Wittgenstein. My general strategy is to elucidate how and why Wittgenstein’s thoughts were, as he says, “completely in touch” with Spengler’s thoughts before reading him. So I argue that Spengler’s ‘influence’ does not introduce fundamental new ideas into Wittgenstein’s philosophy, but broadens and articulates, as it were, older views on “our time” and culture. Spengler’s and Wittgenstein’s views will indicate why Wittgenstein read and thought it was important to criticize Frazer. In section 1, I aim at showing how the Tractatus arrived at a kind of logical stalemate between the modern and ancient worldviews by uncovering the status of “a priori laws” of logic and science. I argue that Wittgenstein’s point of departure is Russell’s views concerning the principles of science and logical necessity. When Wittgenstein elucidates the nature of necessity in the Tractatus he “upsets” Russell’s views and establishes a stalemate between the ancient and modern worldviews. A cultural version of this stalemate appears in Spengler’s work. In section 2, I argue that Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘grammar’ (at least around 1930–32) also grounds the result of the Tractatus concerning principles of science and natural laws. In section 3, I show how Wittgenstein’s understanding of contrasting synoptic views of facts informs his critique of Spengler and Frazer. In section 4, I show that Wittgenstein’s personal opinions are in touch with Spengler’s description of “our times”. This agreement, I argue, might indicate thoughts that Wittgenstein had already thought about “our times”, religion, and Russia before reading Spengler. Finally, in section 5, I conjecture that a gap concerning “primitive societies” in Spengler’s The Decline of the West explains Wittgenstein’s interest in Renan and Frazer in 1930–31. While trying to clarify what brings Wittgenstein to Frazer’s book, I also indicate what, for Wittgenstein, could be the “the real foundations” of Frazer’s inquiry. This at least partially explains why it was important to criticize him.

(2011) and Klagge (2011) for example, attempt to connect the remarks on Frazer, Spengler, the Tractatus, and Wittgenstein’s later views on religion and culture. While trying to establish the desiderata above, those books were very helpful. Some of the disagreements between our views are discussed in this paper. Unfortunately, I had the chance to read Brusotti (2014) only at the revision stage of this paper.



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1 S  pengler’s Real, Significant Thoughts, and the Tractatus At the time Wittgenstein wrote the first set of remarks on Frazer, in 1931, he included Spengler in a list of influences: “Boltzmann, Hertz, Schopenhauer, Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos, Weininger, Spengler, Sraffa” (MS 154: 16r; CV: 19). Wittgenstein’s so-called ‘influences’ are a tricky issue, however. Take, for example, Russell. He gave him problems to solve and a common project around 1912. However, some years later, “the solution of our problems” ends up upsetting “all our theory of truth, classes, of numbers, and all the rest” (letter to Russell from 13.3.1919; WC: 89; my emphasis). One must not suppose, thus, that an influence is someone Wittgenstein follows blindly. After all, he also wrote: “it is a good thing that I don’t allow myself to be influenced” (MS 105: 67; CV: 1). It is advisable, therefore, to go slowly in regard to this issue and to consider that for Wittgenstein an ‘influence’ might be someone who provides food for thought and mistakes to be corrected as well. This is certainly the case with Russell’s influence. What is the nature of Spengler’s influence? An important clue can be found in the following passage: Reading Spengler Decline etc. & in spite of many irresponsibilities in the particulars, find many real, significant thoughts. Much, perhaps most of it, is completely in touch with what I have often thought myself. (MS 183: 16; PPO: 25)

There are two important aspects of the remark to be noticed. First, Wittgenstein is quite critical when he mentions “irreponsibilities in the particulars”. Spengler is “irresponsible” for not taking into account the details of many historical facts that do not seem to fit his views. As Wittgenstein says to Drury: “I don’t trust Spengler about details” (CW: 113).6 According to Wittgenstein, “It’s a shame that Spengler did not stick with his Good Thoughts […]” (MS 183: 19; PPO: 27). One of the good thoughts is, for instance, this: “[…] the bow instruments reached their definite forms in Upper Italy between 1480 and 1530 […]” (DW I: 62). Such a thought is, for Wittgenstein, “of enormous magnitude (& symbolism)”. This is because it makes someone aware that a culture might be similar to a human body, which reaches a full development and eventually dies, rather than “a sausage which can run on indefinitely” (MS 183: 20; PPO: 29).7

6 Wittgenstein’s suspicion was, of course, expressed by many since the publication of Decline (see Felken’s Nachwort, postface, to Untergang des Abendlandes). See also Bouveresse 2001b. 7 This is a thought that Wittgenstein could have found many years earlier in Nestroy 1962 and Kraus 1920.

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Wittgenstein wished, however, for “greater cleanliness” in Spengler’s work. He should just stick to his good thoughts, as the one just mentioned, instead of going “further than what he can answer for” (MS 183: 19; PPO: 27). Spengler “goes further” in many ways, but the engine that brings him beyond what he can answer for is the same. He thinks that he discovered a pattern, a “morphology”, in historical developments (the development of a culture and its decline in a civilization) and believed that he could make the whole history (or histories) of humanity fit it. Spengler does not fully realize how his model (or mould) works. When all is said and done, he commits a similar injustice to the facts as do his opponents, who defended a simplifying positivistic model of the “progress of humanity” grounded in the division “Ancient – Middle Age – Modernity” (DW I, introduction). In section 3, I exemplify the workings and dogmatism of Spengler’s model in more details. Second, most of Spengler’s real, significant thoughts, as Wittgenstein remarks, are completely in touch with what he had often thought himself. This shows, I think, that Spengler’s ‘influence’ is also a tricky business. Wittgenstein continues the remark quoted above by exemplifying one of those thoughts: “The possibility of a number of closed systems which, once one has them, look as if one is the continuation of another” (MS 183: 16; PPO: 25). Here Wittgenstein is referring to Spengler’s understanding of the history of mathematics, according to which there is not just one mathematics, but “a complex of self-contained and independent developments” (DW I: 61). Wittgenstein had independently conceived the idea of ‘multiple complete systems’ in his philosophy of mathematics in 1929–30.8

8 In the mentioned passage, Wittgenstein talks about systems that seem to be somehow already contained in an incomplete system, so that they “look as if one was the continuation of another” (PPO: 25). The idea of an incomplete system that contains something concealed suggests that discoveries are needed in order to complement the system. The notion of mathematical ‘complete systems’ opposes, thus, the idea of discoveries (completion of a system), which is the fundamental assumption of Platonism in mathematics. The idea of complete systems in mathematics appears already in MS 105: 30–32 (certainly before October 1929). One might compare Spengler (DW I: 59–62) with Wittgenstein (PR §§150–188). Note, however, that Wittgenstein’s idea of complete systems has logical or ‘grammatical’ grounds (the set of rules determine a system) while Spengler’s has historical grounds (a culture determines a system). Spengler might have shown to Wittgenstein that his ‘grammatical’ account of mathematics at the time was “completely in touch” with a broad picture of historical developments. I say ‘broad’ because he had already used a famous example in the history of mathematics, the trisection of the angle, in order to exemplify complete systems before he presumably read Spengler (see MS 105: 28). In a note written in 1942, Wittgenstein says: “I just want to say: These people should not arrive at the view that they are making mathematical discoveries – but rather only physical discoveries. (How much indeed I am influenced by Spengler in my thinking)” (MS 125: 30v; translated in Cahill 2011: 128).



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According to Philosophical Remarks, each mathematical system is autonomously self-contained: the rules of each system completely determine the meaning of the signs of the system (PR §§152–158).9 The idea of multiple complete systems is, however, only one example of things that Wittgenstein had himself thought before, as the plural indicates (thoughts).10 There are at least hints of two other ideas that Wittgenstein developed in 1929–30 that can be found in Spengler. The first is the very idea that mathematics is a kind of ‘grammar’: “In the last analysis, the number language of a mathematic and the grammar of a tongue are structurally alike” (DW I: 57). The second is the idea that language is not restricted to word-languages. Spengler points out, for instance, that there is no such thing as a purely word-language: “In actuality a pure word-language does not exist” (DW II: 138; slightly modified translation). This fits Wittgenstein’s understanding of language in Philosophical Remarks very well, where he claims that samples of color are part of language (PR §38; from MS 107: 281).11 As we will see, there are other striking examples of thoughts already thought by Wittgenstein. I begin with a result of the Tractatus. A remark that Wittgenstein

In this remark, however, I suspect that Spengler was not meant as an influence merely because of his agreement with the idea of multiple systems, but also because he was the first to give some ground for Wittgenstein’s invention of tribes that have peculiar mathematics (see introduction, desideratum eight). The remark just quoted begins with “One can imagine people who have applied but no pure mathematics …” (MS 125: 128v). Another ‘people’ is introduced right before (MS 125: 23v). Such remarks are an expression of the ‘anthropological view’ developed after 1933 (Engelmann 2013: chapter 3). 9 In spite of apparently treating the autonomy and arbitrariness of ‘grammar’ as the same in the Big Typescript (BT: 234–244), it is quite useful to make the distinction, for in Philosophical Remarks the whole ‘grammar’ is ‘arbitrary’ (i.e.: it cannot be justified), but only a part of ‘grammar’ – logic and mathematics – is ‘autonomous’ (i.e.: the meaning of a sign is considered equivalent to the rules of a system). I briefly discuss the notion of ‘arbitrariness’ in section 2 of this paper. ‘Autonomy’ of ‘grammar’ is a fundamental feature of the calculus conception of language (see the seventh desideratum). On why and how Wittgenstein invented the calculus conception of language after Philosophical Remarks, see chapter 2 of Engelmann (2013). This change takes place already before the remarks on Frazer, but it is not necessary to look at more details of this change for my goals here. However, the idea of ‘autonomy’ seems to play an important role in Wittgenstein’s discussions of Frazer in his 1933 Lectures (see section 3, footnote 32). 10 It is plausible to think that many of the “important thoughts” are related to music and art in general (see MS 154: 15v; CV: 17). I won’t be able to deal with those thoughts in this paper. 11 Moreover, Spengler’s hint indicates one of the sources of Wittgenstein’s worries concerning gesture languages from 1930 onwards (see for instance, MS 110: 52 and 121). Spengler discusses gesture-languages and refers to Neapolitan gestures (DW II: 140), an important issue in Wittgenstein’s philosophical development due to Sraffa’s criticism (see Engelmann 2013: chapter 3).

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wrote right after his comments on Spengler discussed above gives us an important clue about how thoughts he had already had are completely in touch with Spengler’s thoughts: Sixteen years ago,12 when I had the thought that the law of causality was meaningless (bedeutungsloss) and that there is a view (Betrachtung) of the world that does not care for it, then I had the feeling of the beginning of a new age (see variations of translation in PPO: 29; MS 183: 21 from 05.1930).

“The feeling of the beginning of a new age” seems an overreaction due to early results. But what could have motivated Wittgenstein to think that his early thought on causality could be so relevant and bring such a “feeling”? Why did Wittgenstein write the remark above right after writing about Spengler? Note that there are two major achievements that Wittgenstein saw in his early understanding of causality: supposedly, it makes clear that the law is meaningless and that there is a Betrachtung, a view, of the world according to which the law does not carry a lot of significance. In order to understand why Wittgenstein thought that his views on causality could be so important and how they are in touch with Spengler’s thoughts, we need some background information. We need to understand the state of affairs before the Tractatus was written. The place to look for this is in Russell’s works, for, as usual, Wittgenstein’s early book is a place where we find the solution of “our problems”, i.e., his and Russell’s (WC: 89). One of their early problems was the understanding of a priori principles.13 In On the Notion of Cause Russell attacks “the traditional view of causality” according to which causality is explained as a necessary relation between cause and effect (every effect must have a cause), which is expressed as “true under all circumstances”. Roughly, Russell’s argument is the following. A proposition is merely true or false; “true under all circumstances” applies only to propositional functions (ONC: 148). However, saying that Fx ⊃ Gx is true under all circumstances in which we allow significant substitutions of x boils down to saying (x) (Fx ⊃ Gx), which is itself true or false. So causal necessity is deflated to the expression of generality: no exceptions are

12 This insight, one might think, takes place around 1914–15 (“sixteen years ago”). Indeed, the thoughts about causality appear in the Notebooks of the time and reappear in the Tractatus. 13 If one doesn’t follow the line of thought proposed here, one might not see Wittgenstein’s reasons to reach a result that is somehow presented in Spengler’s book. If we miss the reasons, we do not see fundamental differences between Wittgenstein’s and Spengler’s views. Differences are as relevant as agreements.



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allowed.14 One might think that time contiguity can substantiate the notion of ‘causality’ by saying that a given event always follows another in time. However, Russell argues, since the time series is compact, we cannot properly talk about one event following another in time. ‘Event’ turns out to be vague. Consequently, Russell thinks, what we mean by ‘causality’ when we talk of certain uniformities is that “if any such sequence has been observed in a great many cases, and has never been found to fail, there is an inductive probability that it will be found to hold in future cases” (ONC: 152; my emphasis). This means that ‘causality’, properly understood, is the probabilistic application of the inductive principle to observed regularities expressed in general statements. The result of such application is that we choose “the simplest formula that fits the facts” (ONC: 161). According to Russell’s critique of the “traditional conception of causality”, we might conclude that “the inductive principle” underlies and sustains our talk on causality. In The Problems of Philosophy he makes the point explicit: The general principles of science, such as the belief in the reign of law, and the belief that every event must have a cause, are as completely dependent upon the inductive principle as are the beliefs of daily life. All such general principles are believed because mankind has found innumerable instances of their truth and no instances of their falsehood. (PoP: 69)

If other principles of science are dependent upon the inductive principle, one might wonder on what it depends. “Innumerable instances” might have prompted us to believe the principle, but what are the grounds (reasons, and not causes) that we have to assume the principle of induction? (PoP: 63) Russell argues that it cannot be justified empirically, for past evidence alone certainly does not confirm it and future evidence is not available. Hence, Russell thought, we must somehow assume it a priori due to its “intrinsic evidence”: Thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future. If the principle is unsound, we have no reason to expect the sun to rise to-morrow […]. (PoP: 68–69; my emphasis)

The principles of causality and, more fundamentally, induction lack the certainty of the principles of logic, but must be taken as a priori principles that are true, Russell argues, for they justify scientific laws and ordinary beliefs (those are instances of the principle). However, the “intrinsic evidence” that Russell

14 Frege defended a similar view of ‘necessity’ in Begriffsschrift, §4. It is quite interesting that the anti-modality philosophy of logic developed in early analytic philosophy has been forgotten in its new metaphysical clothing. The last stand (for now) is Quine’s, it seems.

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refers to is nothing more than a camouflaged justification of a priori principles grounded in their psychological “certainty”. The “intrinsic evidence” is, supposedly, self-evidence, i.e., “a property of judgments, consisting in the fact that, in the same experience with themselves, they are accompanied by acquaintance with their truth” (TK: 166). Supposedly, one is more acquainted with the truth in judgments concerning logical principles than in judgments concerning principles of science. Principles of logic, like the Law of the Excluded Middle, and the Principle of Induction have, thus, different degrees of certainty or evidence (PoP: 69–72). The certainty of logic, according to Russell, is grounded in “simple forms” which we understand because we are supposedly acquainted with them (TK: 98, 130–132). The major problems with Russell’s understanding of a priori principles are that ‘acquaintance’ with truth or forms is an obscure notion and that self-evidence is, of course, a bad criterion for the truth of any statement. After all, the truth of p does not follow from “p is self-evident”, as Wittgenstein remarks (TLP 5.136). However, Russell’s entanglement with psychological notions such as ‘evidence’ and ‘certainty’ is just the expression of his difficulties with the status of a priori “propositions”. The most salient aspect of the problem of self-evidence is that the lack of a criterion for the “laws of logic” goes hand in hand with Russell’s assumption of dubious “logical” laws, such as the axiom of reducibility and the axiom of infinity (TLP 5.535, 6.1232).15 To what extent are those laws self-evident? They cannot have the same degree of self-evidence as the Law of the Excluded Middle, presumably (PoP: chapter VII). But what makes the Law of the Excluded Middle itself self-evident except for the dubious assumption that we are acquainted with logical forms? At the time of his Lectures on The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918) his despair concerning the nature of principles and axioms is in clear view. After mentioning some difficulties surrounding his philosophy of logic and mathematics, he dramatically indicates that Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘tautology’ might be the key to the solution of his problems: “Everything that is a proposition of logic has got to be in some sense or other like a tautology. It has got to be something that has some peculiar quality, which I do not know how to define […]” (Russell 1998: 107; my emphasis). Russell had some idea of ‘tautology’ because of conversations, letters, and notes that Wittgenstein dictated in 1913–14, but was not clear about it. In the Tractatus, of course, Wittgenstein elucidates that “peculiar quality” of the propositions of logic mainly by means of truth-tables, which give us a clear

15 This applies also, of course, to Frege’s Law V, which generates the paradox in his system in Grundgesetze der Arithmetik.



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criterion for “laws of logic”. The criterion does not allow us to accept both the principle of reducibility and the axiom of infinity. This is because they fail the tautology-test, and not because they are less self-evident than other “logical laws”. The notion of ‘logical necessity’ is completely deflated in the Tractatus. It merely indicates lack of simultaneous possibility of truth and falsehood, as is shown in a truth-table. This means that ‘logical necessity’ is nothing more than lack of truth-functional content: tautologies are ‘true’ in virtue of nothing; they are, one might say, absolutely a priori. The words ‘necessity’ or ‘necessarily’ add nothing to a truth-table that shows Ts in all lines of a column. Occam’s razor might be applied to such useless words; ‘necessary’ is an example of a sign that behaves without meaning (TLP 3.328). But once it is clear that “propositions” of logic are empty tautologies (TLP  6.1n), we should be able to better understand the nature of necessity in general. Other kinds of supposedly ‘necessary propositions’ lose their aura of fundamental a priori propositions as well. This is the case with ethics (TLP 6.4). It is useful, once more, to briefly contrast Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s views. Russell’s Moorean account of ethical propositions around 1912 is in line with his treatment of other principles. He claims that we must find judgments in ethics that express necessity (the “intrinsic desirability of things”), i.e., “judgments as to what has value on its own account” (PoP: 76). Such judgments are supposedly a priori judgments: […] knowledge as to what is intrinsically of value is a priori in the same sense in which logic is a priori, namely in the sense that the truth of such knowledge can be neither proved nor disproved by experience. (PoP: 76)

From the logical point of view of the Tractatus, the ethical-must cannot be expressed in an empirical proposition, for there would be no value in it because of its contingency and lack enforcement (TLP 6.422). However, if a priori propositions of ethics of the form “You ought …”, “You must …”, etc. existed, as Russell wished , they would simply lack content, as the ‘intrinsically necessary’ propositions of logic. The ethical-must is, thus, empty;16 it is another sign that we might cut out with Occam’s razor. This is, I take it, why “ethics cannot be put into

16 6.4n comes after 6.3n, I think, because ‘God’ is not present in the scientific worldview, as 6.37n makes clear, so that the ‘ancient’ way of reinforcement of moral laws is absent in ethics (6.4). The order of 6.2n and 6.3n makes perfect sense as well. The principles of science and the laws of nature (TLP 6.3n) are elucidated after 6.2n because science applies numbers to facts in its propositions (or interpreted formulas).

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words” (TLP 6.421).17 The indirect result of the minimalism of the Tractatus, once more, is the “upsetting” of Russell’s philosophy.18 The fate of the ‘necessary’ principles of science is a little different (TLP 6.3n). According to the Tractatus, Russell correctly saw that the principle of causality couldn’t be justified as necessary; he did not see, however, that the principle itself is not needed as a ground of justification. Since psychological notions such as ‘certainty’ and ‘evidence’ are useless, and ‘necessity’ has a truth-functional tautological nature, we must accept a very deflated idea of ‘causality’, the ‘principle of induction’, etc., as well. The “law” of causality is merely a formal expression of the way that we construe natural laws. It is the form of laws; it is not itself a law, a proposition. Or, as Wittgenstein says in 1930, it is ‘meaningless’. That the law of causality is not a proposition is shown by the fact that it does not allow the exclusion of anything that we think we can describe (TLP 6.362). If it were a proposition, we could look for a cause without an effect. If it is not a proposition, it cannot justify anything, however. Thus, the law of causality only determines a form “in which the propositions of science can be cast” (TLP 6.34). It is empty of content, meaningless in itself. The explanatory formulas of science are part of a schema (a net) or a system that we impose in order to describe the world in a “unified form” (TLP 6.341). Since various systems might in principle fulfill the unifying purpose in accord with the “principles of science”, the adoption of a system is not compulsory (TLP 6.341). The principle of induction, however, is a proposition with sense and, therefore, might be false (it cannot be, thus, a principle whose truth is determined a priori). The truth of “Regularities determined in the past will be observed in the future” depends on future facts being true. It is, thus, something we need to observe in order to know. Consequently, its ‘ground’ as an “a priori principle” is really nothing more than psychological compulsion. Of course, the hypothesis

17 I think that the Tractarian answer to the Russellian-Moorean view on ethics is usually not observed or emphasized in the literature (see, for instance, Hacker 1986 and Diamond 1991). 18 With ‘minimalism’ I mean “a style which involves using the smallest range of materials possible and only the simplest shapes” (I adapted the definition from The Cambridge International Dictionary of English). The range of materials for the Tractatus is logic; the simplest shapes are logical rules expressed in the signs of the symbolism of the book. One must note that the fundamental result of the Tractatus is that ‘necessity’ is just logical ‘necessity’, i.e., tautological, for which the book gives criteria in a symbolism of variables that says nothing (rules don’t say, they show). This result means the elimination of synthetic and analytic a priori propositions (except for tautologies) in all philosophical fields. Any idea of “intrinsic necessity” that is not tautological is erased (“historical necessity” as well). This means, of course, that no philosophical task remains: ‘nonsense’ is a label for all sentences that seem, but are not, ‘necessary’.



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that the observed regularities of the past will be observed in the future is always simpler than the opposite hypothesis. Thus, we usually accept the “simplest law that can be reconciled with our experiences” (TLP 6.363), as Russell also suggested (see above), but this does not have a logical foundation, contrary to what Russell thought. In any case, the talk about “degrees of self-evidence” or “certainty” does not add to this (again, we must use Occams’s razor). Indeed, Russell could have come to the conclusion that “it is an hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow” (TLP 6.3631; see PoP: 68–69, quoted above). This means that there is no such thing as justifying an empirical “inference” by means of causality (TLP 5.136), as Russell wished, for the causal nexus is not a logical nexus. Logical nexus is what tautological inferences show. Only a tautological inference expresses an “inner necessity” (TLP 5.1362). The belief in the causal nexus is, according to the Tractatus, superstitious: 19 Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus (TLP 5.1361).

Now, if one takes such a superstition to ground the truth of scientific laws and, thus, scientific explanation, one has a superstitious view of science and, perhaps, of the “scientific worldview”. Moreover, if one thinks that the last explanation of the truth of the laws of nature is based on the view according to which natural laws are truths that are explained by means of, grounded in, or derived from the truth of the principle of causality, one mistakes the way we look at things with facts. In other words, one mistakes a form or a rule for the construction of propositions with propositions. Wittgenstein thinks in the Tractatus that this confusion is typical of our “modern worldview”. The modern worldview is, at the end, from a purely logical point of view, as grounded as the ancients’: The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. (TLP 6.371) Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. And in fact both are right and both are wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained. (TLP 6.372)

19 This result of the Tractatus, I think, expresses also Wittgenstein’s major move against one of his early influences, Schopenhauer, who thought that various forms of causality were given as the only a priori fundamental law. Arguably, Schopenhauer confusedly mixes logical and physical necessity in Über die Vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom Zureichenden Grunde, §§20–21, an essay to which he constantly refers to in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.

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The modern world has more effective tools of piecemeal explanation, i.e., modern science. In this, I take it, the modern worldview is right when it “stops at the laws of nature”. However, the moderns supposedly try to make it appear, presumably in the propaganda of science – present in the popularized science and its prose –, that everything is explained by means of laws of nature. One takes such laws as inviolable final explanations grounded in principles of science. In one sense, this is true, for if all laws of science were in place, there would be no further questions to be asked concerning what the world is like (TLP 6.52). But this only means that, given our framework of explanation and our presuppositions expressed in the form of laws of nature, everything is explained if we find a total theory of science, i.e., a system in which all true propositions appear in a unified form. The laws of such theory, however, are not explained by or grounded in the ‘certainty’ of principles of science, for principles are not truths that give grounds for the derivation of laws. The forms of laws are just moulds into which we put propositions. Thus, from the Tractarian logical point of view, there is no logical compulsion in our acceptance of “last explanations”. The very notational devices of the Tractatus supposedly show that “outside logic everything is accidental” (TLP 6.3) and that there is no necessity involved in the assumption of the model of scientific explanation. It is only psychological, and not logical, compulsion that makes us accept the modern worldview that tries to make it look as if everything were explained. Now, the lack of logical compulsion in the grounding of the modern view should open our eyes to alternative worldviews. We do not have to take our worldview as irreplaceable, as the “ancient worldview” attests. However, the appeal to God or Fate in the ancients’ view won’t deliver an explanation either, for nothing is added to an explanation when we use words such as ‘God created the world’ or ‘This is Destiny, Fate’. Again, here, there is no logical compulsion. Thus, if the ‘ancients’ took ‘God’ as the final explanation, they were also wrong. “God is the creator” is simply a dogma according to the modern world view, and it is unjustified from a logical point of view. Obviously, ‘God’ itself needs to be explained (What caused or created God?), if this is to count as an explanation at all. So there is no logical compulsion that brings one either to the modern or the ancient view. What the ‘ancients’ apparently do is accept that there is no question to be asked after one accepts ‘God is beyond everything’. Accepting this means not asking further; it does not mean ‘it is impossible to ask’ or ‘this is the ultimate explanation’. Such an acceptance is typically religious and it is not (or should not be) meant as a theory. It only indicates the last ground the “ancients” are willing to reach. The fact that ancients do not ask further, Wittgenstein suggests, indicates that they are at least clear about one thing: not everything is explained with principles or laws. In the old style of thinking, we can at least find the insight that not



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everything is explained, which is the illusion of the moderns in their scientific prose. Note that from the logical point of view of the Tractatus, a Christian living in a modern world could accept the demands of the Gospels, but he would not try to explain or justify them (I come back to this in sections 4 and 5). Wittgenstein does not exemplify the “view of the ancients”. The ancients (die Aelteren) seem to be those who don’t ground their worldview in scientific explanations (natural laws). One might say that ‘ancients’ are those who have “a view (Betrachtung) of the world that does not care” for our scientific worldview, for our natural laws (PPO: 29; MS 183: 21; quoted in full above). In such a worldview, natural laws and scientific explanations have a secondary role. ‘Ancients’ care about ‘God’ and ‘Fate’.20 Their acceptance of an end of explanation characterizes, I take it, a religious point of view. Thus, one might say that, from a logical point of view, scientific and religious worldviews are involved in a stalemate. We could choose to live in a “new age”, a new religious age, if we were willing to do so. Wittgenstein finds the essentials of his own thoughts concerning the meaning of explanation, causality, and natural laws in Spengler. This can be gathered from the following passage from the Decline of the West: We see, then, that the causality-principle, in the form in which it is self-evidently necessary for us – the agreed basis of truth for our mathematics, physics and philosophy – is a Western and, more strictly speaking, a Baroque phenomenon. It cannot be proved, for every proof set forth in a Western language and every experiment conducted by a Western mind presupposes itself. In every problem, the enunciation contains the proof in germ. The method of a science is the science itself. Beyond question, the notion of laws of Nature and the conception of physics as scientia experimentalis, which has held ever since Roger Bacon, contains a priori this specific kind of necessity. The Classical mode of regarding Nature – the alter ego of the Classical mode of being on the contrary, does not contain it, and yet it does not appear that the scientific position is weakened in logic thereby. (DW I: 392)

Note that Spengler’s reasoning begins by mentioning the view that the principle of causality is self-evident and, as Wittgenstein in the Tractatus and Russell believed earlier, he thinks that one cannot prove it. However, it is self-evident only for us, i.e., its compulsion is rather psychological or cultural. Moreover, as Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, he sees the principle as a formal assumption and mentions ancient cultures (in the case above the “Classical mode”) as the counterpoint of the modern worldview. Not all cultures, in such a view, consider causality and natural laws to be fundamental notions. There is, according to Spengler, a worldview (the Classical mode) that does not care for a law of causality. In

20 ‘God’ and ‘Fate’ are fundamental concerns of Spengler, as we will see below.

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fact, for Spengler, there is more than just one alternative worldview, for instance, there is also the “Arabian Culture”: The alchemist or philosopher of the Arabian Culture, too, assumes a necessity within his world-cavern that is utterly and completely different from the necessity of dynamics. There is no causal nexus of law-form but only one cause. God, immediately underlying every effect. (DW I: 393)

The proximity between Wittgenstein and Spengler concerning the understanding of the role of laws of nature and causality is quite clear, I think, even though Spengler’s ground for assuming the view is not logical or ‘grammatical’, but rather the interpretation of historical/cultural data. One might say that Spengler splits Wittgenstein’s Tractarian notion of ‘ancients’ into various worldviews or cultures (the Chinese, the Indian, the Arabian, etc.). So what Wittgenstein finds in Spengler’s book is a broader and articulated presentation of ‘ancients’ and ‘modernity’, which is “completely in touch” (MS 183: 16; PPO: 25; quoted above) with Tractarian and post-Tractarian views. I look further at agreements between Wittgenstein and Spengler (thoughts already thought by Wittgenstein) in sections 4–5; I look at profound disagreements in section 3. Before moving further, however, I need to dispel a possible worry concerning the ‘grammatical’ understanding of scientific principles in 1930–32.

2 Rules of ‘Grammar’ and Two Styles of Thinking One could think that the views of the Tractatus concerning the principles of science and natural laws might not be the same views that Wittgenstein held when he wrote the remarks on Spengler and Frazer around 1931. We will see that the understanding of such principles does not essentially change, however. Wittgenstein’s Tractarian view is rather adapted from within the ‘grammatical’ framework.21

21 Wittgenstein’s 1930-preface ends with the following remarks concerning the Tractatus: “In my old book the solution of the problems is still presented in a far too little homespun (hausbacken) way; it has still too much the appearance as if discoveries were needed to solve our problems and everything is still too little brought in the form of grammatical trivialities in ordinary language. Everything looked still too much like discoveries” (MS 109: 212–213; my emphasis). All the emphasized phrases indicate an envisioned adaptation of his early work, which is still too dogmatic, still presented incorrectly; it is not homespun enough. Of course, an adaptation implies



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In 1929, Wittgenstein gave up the idea that ‘necessity’ is simply a priori tautological truth-functionality expressed in truth-tables. In fact, it is very likely that he came back to philosophy because he saw that some ‘necessary’ relations are not tautological in the sense of the Tractatus (see SRLF). This is one of the reasons why Wittgenstein begins to talk about ‘rules of syntax’ or ‘rules of grammar’ in 1929. ‘Grammar’ is more comprehensive than logic, for it includes, besides Tractarian tautologies, ‘necessary’ phenomenological and mathematical rules (see, for instance, PR §§3, 82–83, and 121). The goal of Wittgenstein’s ‘grammar’ was to present such rules in a perspicuous (übersichtlich) way (MS 108: 31; PR §1). The synoptic view of rules of the Tractatus (its symbolism or notation) was too restrictive, for it presented strictly a priori rules, and did not account for many logical relations that one might call ‘non truth-functionally expressible’. For our concerns here, what is interesting in the notion of a comprehensive ‘grammar’ is that rules of ‘grammar’ also deflate the notion of ‘necessity’, in a way similar to the tautologies of the Tractatus: When one adds the rule to the proposition, the sense of the proposition doesn’t change. If the definition of a metre is that it is the length of the standard metre in Paris, then the proposition “This room is 4m long” says the same thing as “This room is 4m long, and 1m the length of the standard metre in Paris”. (MS 113: 23r from 12.1931; translated in BT: 241)

Here one must just remember that, for instance, “‘p ∨ ~p’ says nothing” and, thus, that “‘q : p ∨ ~p’ says the same thing as ‘q’” (TLP 5.513). Fundamental in the new conception is not a truth-table notation, but the understanding of the role of rules of ‘grammar’: they are inferentially expressed and they prohibit nonsense. The rule “A cannot be (or it is nonsense to say that A is) red and blue allover simultaneously” is expressed, for instance, in this inference: “This book is red allover; thus, it is not blue, not yellow, etc.” Some rules, like the one quoted above and mathematical equations, allow substitutional inferences. No rule, however, states anything. The same must be said of a set of rules perspicuously presented in, for instance, the synopsis of rules (in the perspicuous representation) of the color octahedron (PR §§1, 218–224; BT: 441, 485). Since rules of ‘grammar’ include even the ‘grammar’ of colors, one might think that they must have a weird status, something between a priori and a posteriori, necessary and contingent. Wittgenstein thinks, however, at least in Philo-

changes, which shall be noted. For a more detailed view of Wittgenstein’s adaptations of the Tractatus see Engelmann (2013). The ending of Wittgenstein’s preface has not been published either in Rhees’s edited preface of Philosophical Remarks or in Culture and Value.

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sophical Remarks (1930) and in the Big Typescript (1932–33), that those are not the real issues. There is nothing fundamental attached to the Tractarian absolutely ‘a priori’ logic anymore. We should shift and broaden our perspective here. Fundamental is the distinction between the notions of ‘rules’ in general (the conditions that must be fulfilled for a sentence to work as a description) and ‘propositions’ (descriptions of reality): “A rule establishes a unit of measurement, and an empirical proposition says how long an object is” (MS 113: 22v; BT: 240). One might then say that ‘necessary’ is merely what expresses relations grounded in what we take as fundamental rules (conditions of sense) of the ‘grammar’ of language: in logic, phenomenology, mathematics, and science. But why do our rules of ‘grammar’ compel us in inferences? Should we call them ‘necessary’ after all? One might call them as one likes, of course, but they do compel us because we use them as expressions of the limits of sense and, as such, we do not derive them from propositions, i.e., nothing contingent establishes our rules of ‘grammar’. Actually, Wittgenstein suggests that we cannot, in principle, derive rules of ‘grammar’ from descriptions of facts. He calls this the “arbitrariness of grammar” in the Big Typescript (BT: 235; MS 113: 33v). In Philosophical Remarks (1930) the argument(s) for the arbitrariness of grammar are already in place (see PR §§4 and 7), however. Roughly speaking, the train of thought is the following. Ad absurdum, suppose that the rule of ‘grammar’ R is to be justified by propositions p and q. But p, q, and R are either part of the same grammatical system or not. If they are, p and q already presuppose R, for rules of ‘grammar’ indicate what counts as a proposition; thus, nothing is justified (a ‘justification’ would be circular). If they are not part of the same system, p and q must be nonsense according to R’s ‘grammar’; thus, since nonsense does not justify anything, no justification has been given. Therefore, the “justification” of rules, Wittgenstein thinks at least in 1930–32, fails either because of circularity or nonsensical assumptions. It seems natural to take ‘arbitrary rules of grammar’ in 1930–32 as including rules that indicate how natural laws are to be presented, i.e., as what the Tractatus calls “the form of natural laws” (TLP 6.321). Note that, according to the Tractatus, the form of natural laws cannot be justified (it is ‘arbitrary’). Such a rule or form is, presumably, implicitly used in our reasoning and explanations concerning regularities in nature. At the end of 1931, Wittgenstein gives the following examples of rules of ‘grammar’: […] that it makes sense to say that in the visual field a curved line is made up of straight pieces, or that it makes equally good sense to say “The stone falls because it is attracted by the earth” and “The stone has to fall because it … by the earth, etc.” (BT: 244; MS 113: 27r from 12.1931)



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The rules of ‘grammar’, in this case, give us the ground of explanation (‘because’) and express the compelling element of our explanations (‘has to’). Presumably, the use of ‘because’ and ‘has to’ indicates a form of explanation: the causal form implicit in the law of gravity. The “Principle of Causality” itself, however, does not explain: we don’t derive anything from it. But it gives us a model of explanation in sentences such like “The stone has to fall because …” It fixes one of the meanings of ‘because’.22 According to Wittgenstein, in science per se a principle of causality is not even needed: “Physicists make reference to laws of causality in a preface, but they never mention them again” (LWL: 103). The ‘preface’ Wittgenstein has in mind is the preface of science manuals, in which the style of scientific investigations is presented. In MS 108: 198–199 (from 06.1930) he makes the point that the talk in prefaces is transitory, for in manuals of physics all the references to causality disappear as soon as we “get down to business” (zur Sache kommen); that is, the principle does not play a fundamental role in real physics, i.e., in theories and calculations.23 If the principle of causality does not play a role in real physics, why do we talk so much about it? Theories, of course, structure our explanations of facts. ‘Causality’, however, is rather at the “bottom” of what science does, but not as a contentfull-true principle (LWL: 103; from 1931–32). It is rather a “style of investigation” or “thinking” that is similar to a postulate, comparable to ‘God’ as a creator: Causality stands with the physicist for a style of thinking. Compare in religion the postulate of the creator. In a sense it seems to be an explanation, yet in another it does not explain at all. Compare a workman who finishes something off with a spiral. He can do it so that it ends in a knob or tapers off to a point. So with creation. God is one style; the nebula another. A style gives us satisfaction; but one style is not more rational than another. Remarks about science have nothing to do with the progress of science. They rather are a style, which gives satisfaction. (LWL: 104)

The comparison between causality and God, as already presented in the Tractatus, suggests the possibility of two different worldviews and their styles that, in the end, do not explain everything.24 One could say that we have a ‘grammatical’

22 “‘Because’ and ‘why’ can refer either to a reason or to a cause” (LWL: 83). 23 Perhaps a later remark by Wittgenstein might be helpful here: “You investigate to find the cause of a thing – or to find, say, whether heat or impact is the cause. But you never investigate to find out whether it has a cause or not. You look for the cause of it, but you don’t look to see whether it has a cause. And you would never speak either of finding out that it has a cause or of finding out that it hasn’t” (Rhees 2002: 19). 24 ‘Style’ is part of Spengler’s jargon (see DW I: 345, quoted in section 3).

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stalemate: two optional styles that might give satisfaction, which we might be willing to accept. Unlike the Tractatus, however, there is no talk about a superstition here. It is, perhaps, unjust to call the belief in the principle of causality a superstition; after all, it expresses a style, like ‘God’, and is at the bottom of what moderns do.25 Both styles, ‘grammatically’ conceived, are ways, as it were, to finish, to complete worldviews; something like the last move that we are willing to make when explanations come to an end. ‘Natural Laws’ are not true or false, for they point to the future ad infinitum (WVC: 100). Observations, thus, cannot in principle establish their truth. A natural law, thus, does not allow for final verification (WVC: 100). We can only say that one law is “probably more plausible” than others, as long as we are clear that we do not have a precise way of measuring this (WVC: 99). ‘Probable’ only means “simple, easy” (WVC: 99).26 We choose the simplest hypothesis (PR §226).

3 S  pengler’s Morphologic Project Vs. Perspicuous Representation The fact that Wittgenstein and Spengler had similar thoughts (more examples in sections 4 and 5) does not mean that Wittgenstein agrees with Spengler’s morphologic or organic synoptic theory of the development of history. In fact, the grounds of Spengler’s morphological representation are incompatible with Wittgenstein’s logic in the Tractatus and his ‘grammar’ in 1930–32. In order to make this clear, we only need to look at Spengler’s dogmatic model of explanation grounded in the inner or intrinsic necessity of destiny. Spengler’s guiding idea is derived from Goethe’s morphology:27

25 Later, in 1949, Wittgenstein observes: “It is true that we can compare a picture that is firmly rooted in us to a superstition; but it is equally true that we always eventually have to reach some firm ground, either a picture or something else, so that a picture which is at the root of all our thinking is to be respected and not treated as a superstition” (CV: 83). 26 What complicates Wittgenstein’s views concerning natural laws in Philosophical Remarks and Big Typescript is the remodeling of his conception of probability. The Tractarian view was that empty tautological inference gives probability 1 to the inferred sentence and that two logically independent elementary propositions give each other probability ½ (see TLP 5.15n). With the recognition that elementary propositions might not be logically independent, this view must change (WVC: 93). I cannot deal with this difficult issue here. 27 I will not discuss Goethe’s views here. One must note that Goethe is not on the list of influences in which Spengler appears. I think that Schulte (2003) is right when he points out: “Wittgen­



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And just as he [Goethe] followed out the development of the plant-form from the leaf, the birth of the vertebrate type, the process of the geological strata – the Destiny in nature and not the Causality – so here we shall develop the form language of human history, its periodic structure, its organic logic out of the profusion of all the challenging details. (DW I: 25–26)

Contrary to traditional views on historical development, Spengler’s approach looks for an “organic logic” and avoids a historical evolutionary causality as the foundation of his enterprise. ‘Destiny’, as he points out, takes the place of causality (more about this below). Culture, he claims, is like an organism: Cultures are organisms, and world-history is their collective biography. Morphologically, the immense history of the Chinese or of the Classical Culture is the exact equivalent of the petty history of the individual man, or of the animal, or the tree, or the flower. (DW I: 104)

Spengler thinks that he has found the morphology (“organic logic”) of the organic culture: […] we shall succeed in distinguishing, amidst all that is special or unessential, the primitive culture-form, the Culture that underlies as ideal all the individual Cultures. (DW I: 104)

The Culture is an ideal of phases of a cyclic growth and decay that appears in all cultures. Once a culture is in place, the underlying idea (he calls it ‘soul’) develops necessarily: supposedly by means of an “intrinsic necessity” that he calls ‘Destiny’. The idea of a general structure of any culture and the idea of ‘Destiny’ provide the basis, if one can call it that, of the prophetic stance that he adopts concerning the decline of the West. Supposedly, all cultures and civilizations have morphological equivalences, i.e., corresponding “contemporary” parallels (or “counterparts”) that express such a structure: I hope to show that without exception all great creations and forms in religion, art, politics, social life, economy and science appear, fulfil themselves and die down contemporaneously in all the Cultures; that the inner structure of one corresponds strictly with that of all the others; that there is not a single phenomenon of deep physiognomic importance in the record of one for which we could not find a counterpart in the record of every other; and that this counterpart is to be found under a characteristic form and in a perfectly definite chronological position. (DW I: 112)

stein did not feel that he owned a specific kind of insight to Goethe which he could not have gained from another source” (2003: 56). For a different view on the issue see Klagge 2003.

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Spengler thinks that each culture has a rural beginning in which its “soul” is created. This “soul” develops in an “inevitable destiny” (DW I: 48, 424) reaching its climax in a period in which a society lives according to shared cultural goals and religion (this period is called ‘high culture’). Culture develops into its own inevitable decay (called ‘civilization’), a period characterized by world-cities in which usefulness (utility) and money set the standards of behavior. The necessary consequence of the decay of culture is Caesarism, a period of tyranny and selfish violence without a common purpose (a period without a culture). One must note that for Spengler an “intrinsic”, “inner”, or “inward necessity” of human history is revealed in his morphologic or organic schema (DW I: 32, 43, 45, 140, 379; DW II: 302, 413). His idea of “inward necessity” supposedly expresses the ‘must’ of history in opposition to the necessity in nature (DW I: 48). It is a different kind of necessity, a non-causal necessity. It expresses a fatalistic view of cultural development, the ‘soul’ that develops inexorably: Just as every painter and every musician has something in him which, by force of inward necessity, never emerges into consciousness but dominates a priori the form-language of his work and differentiates that work from the work of every other Culture, so every conception of Life held by a Culture-man possesses a priori (in the very strictest Kantian sense of the phrase) a constitution that is deeper than all momentary judgments and strivings and impresses the style of these with the hall-mark of the particular Culture. (DW I: 345)

The idea of “intrinsic/inner/inward necessity” is certainly not in accordance with Wittgenstein’s view on necessity already presented in the Tractatus, for there is nothing logical or tautological about it (see TLP 5.1362 and 6.3). It is also a spurious idea according to his Middle Period and later philosophies. While Spengler criticizes the centrality of the notion of necessary causality in our culture, he replaces it with a Goethean notion of “organic logic” that supposedly reveals in all cultures the Necessity of Destiny or Fate (DW I: 26), which is, arguably, an even more dogmatic explanation.28 It would be, indeed, extraordinary if Wittgenstein did not notice this. He, in fact, never shows the slightest agreement with this side of Spengler’s thought; instead, he flatly opposes it: […] we have to be told the object of comparison, the object from which this way of viewing things is derived, otherwise the discussion will constantly be affected by distortions. Because willy-nilly we shall ascribe the properties of the prototype to the object we are viewing in its light; and we claim “it must always be …” (MS 111: 119 from 1931; BT: 259; CV: 14)

28 “[…] there is a something that is an inevitable necessity of life. Real history is heavy with fate but free of laws” (DW I: 118).



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The “must always” is precisely what characterizes Spengler’s application of his morphological view to any culture, except “primitive cultures” (I return to “primitive cultures” in section 4). Spengler’s archetype, Wittgenstein suggests, “is predicated of all of the objects being investigated” (MS 111: 119 from 1931; BT: 258; CV: 14). In other words, Spengler ends up taking a proposed rule of ‘grammar’, a synoptic ordering of facts, as an inward/intrinsic necessity present in the very meaning of culture and in the historical facts related to it.29 For Wittgenstein, what is interesting in the Goethean-Spenglerian notion of ‘morphology’ is that it shows an alternative view to, for instance, Frazer’s evolutionary account. Spengler’s schema is interesting because it is itself the expression of a worldview (as if it were a view of the “ancients”) according to which the modern scientific worldview might not be accepted. But the dogmatism of both views is to be avoided. This is, I think, the point of the following passage: “And so the chorus points to a secret law”, one feels like saying to Frazer’s collection of facts. I can represent this law, this idea, by means of an evolutionary hypothesis, or also, analogously to the schema of a plant, by means of the schema of a religious ceremony, but also by means of the arrangement of its factual content alone, in a ‘perspicuous’ representation. (MS 110: 256; RFGB: 133; my emphasis on ‘but also’; otherwise, Wittgenstein’s emphasis)

Note that Wittgenstein points out that a Goethean-Spenglerian schema is an alternative to an evolutionary hypothesis that works as Frazer’s secret law of progress from magic to science. The important difference between Spengler and Frazer is that Frazer intends to present the secret law in what one might call ‘scientific terms’ (evolutionary hypothesis grounded in utility),30 while Spengler intends to explain the facts he collects with a secret law to be presented in what one might call ‘morphologic terms’ (Goethe’s schema of a plant or Urplanze). Both hypotheses, Frazer’s and Spengler’s, however, are contrasted with Wittgenstein’s own suggestion, as “but also” makes clear. Both hypotheses are grounded in analogies and lack of appreciation for differences;31 both are ‘expla-

29 As Wittgenstein says in MS 110: 114 (the MS where he writes the remarks on Frazer): “The only correlate of an intrinsic necessity (Naturnotwendigkeit) is an arbitrary rule”. This remark might be applied to Spengler in the following way. Spengler thinks that he discovered the real meaning of ‘culture’ in his morphologic schema. However, what he really did was to propose a way to look at and to organize culture historically. His schema is merely a proposed ‘notation’, an ‘object of comparison’. 30 I return to Frazer’s evolutionary hypothesis grounded in utility below. 31 In Frazer one finds, for instance, such formulations: “The analogy of many customs in many lands points to the conclusion that […]” (GB: 665).

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nations’ that point to or at least suggest a secret underlying law that is sustained by analogies; both explanations go beyond the mere arrangement of factual content alone, which would be Wittgenstein’s way of presentation, if he had decided to go deeper into the issue. In fact, he only gives some hints about how one could proceed, avoiding Frazer’s assumptions.32 If Spengler had restricted his account to a mere arrangement, he would not have gone “further than what he can answer for” (MS 183: 19; PPO: 27).33 Spengler does not “see the data in their relation to one another and embrace them in a general picture without putting it in the form of an hypothesis about temporal development” (RFGB: 131; see DW I: 112, quoted above). Indeed, Spengler’s schema is an hypothesis about temporal development. With his schema “he puts history into moulds” (CW: 113). Thus, Wittgenstein does not subscribe to any of the schemas that he criticizes (namely, the evolutionary hypothesis and the schema of a plant).34 One of Wittgenstein’s favorite examples of perspicuous representation was – at least between 1930 and 1932 – the color octahedron, a representation of the structure (rules) of color qua phenomenon (see PR §§1 and 218–224). The remarks on perspicuity already appear in MS 108 pp. 31 and 89 (from December 1929 and

32 I cannot agree completely, therefore, with Johnston, who sees in the Remarks on Frazer “an alternative account which Wittgenstein puts forward” (1991: 34). Perhaps, Wittgenstein tried to present the ‘arrangement’ that he mentions in his lectures from 1932–33, as can be attested in Moore’s already published notes (p. 306) and in the complete notes that will appear soon (I thank David Stern for letting me look at those notes). There he discusses Frazer again, but only after presenting ‘grammars’ of ‘God’, ‘grammars’ that supposedly are implicitly given in how people understand the word. His elucidation assumes the arbitrariness and autonomy of ‘grammar’ (see footnote 9) and is meant to show that ‘God’ has different rules in different ‘grammatical’ systems, so that rules concerning ‘God’ might be fundamental in one system and nonsense in another. I think that this is the kind of structure that his “arrangement” at the time needed. However, I am not sure whether this kind of elucidation can be successful. It is not clear, for instance, how one can discuss the ‘grammars’ of God, if some statements are nonsensical in one ‘grammar’ and make sense in another (in which ‘grammar’ are we discussing?). His own views on ‘grammar’ at the time are still developing (on ‘grammar’, see Engelmann 2011 and chapter 3 of 2013). 33 Also: “Spengler could be better understood if he were to say: I am comparing different cultural periods to the lives of families […]” (MS 111: 119; BT: 259; my emphasis on ‘could’ and ‘were’). The same could be said of Frazer. 34 It seems to me, thus, misleading to approximate Wittgenstein’s to Spengler’s or Goethe’s morphology (see, for instance, Haller 1988, Cahill 2011: 128–133). Goethe’s primal plant (Urplanze), in fact, also reminds one of Urbild (proto picture) in the Tractatus and of the idea that language has an a priori structure expressed in variables (logical form) to be applied to reality. Those views are not in agreement with Wittgenstein middle and later works. The rejection of certain features of that Urbild is, I think, the main purpose of SRLF.



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February 1930, respectively), while comments on Spengler appear for the first time in May 1930. This, and the fact that he criticizes Spengler’s schema, indicate that Wittgenstein did not derive his idea of Übersichtlichkeit (perspicuity) or übersichtliche Darstellung (perspicuous representation) from Spengler. One must notice that, even if Spengler inspired him, he was quite critical and changed Spenglerian notions. For what Wittgenstein first did with his notion of ‘perspicuity’ had very little to do with Spengler’s views.

4 “ Our Times” and the Transvaluation of all Values: The Cult of the Useful Spengler’s understanding of the modern worldview and the role of scientific explanation is grounded in culture in general terms (history, art, religion, science, and economy). Broader issues are only hinted at in the Tractatus, where Wittgenstein says, “the whole modern world view is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena” (TLP 6.371; my emphasis). One should note, however, that Wittgenstein’s remarks concerning culture in the Tractatus stop exactly where the minimalist philosophy of the book stops, i.e., they do not go beyond the results of the synopsis of a priori logic presented in its symbolism. Going further would be a matter of personal opinion, which is absent in his work. In 1930, however, he expresses his personal point of view about the modernity-outlook in the famous preface to which no book is assigned (MS 109: 205–207; CV: 6–8). Wittgenstein told Drury to read Spengler so that he could learn “something about the age we are now living in”; it would be an “antidote” for Drury’s “incurable romanticism” (CW: 113). Spengler, I take it, presented the “spirit of the main current of European and American Civilization”, as suggests the 1930-preface (MS 109: 205; CV: 6). This spirit, for Wittgenstein and Spengler, expresses itself in our industry, architecture, music, in fascism and socialism, and consists in “an unimpressive spectacle of a crowd whose best members work for purely private ends” (CV: 6; my emphasis). The form of this civilization, and not merely one of its features, is progress (CV: 7). ‘Progress’ is characterized by the belief that societies might develop indefinitely. Wittgenstein says that his dislike of his times is not a judgment of value. His point is not that his civilization is worse than others, but that his times are not the best soil for his philosophical activity. He is just describing his times as he sees it. It is a matter of personal, sincere, opinion concerning

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the “spectacle” of his days.35 This personal point of view is, in many ways, “completely in touch” with Spengler’s views of his times, as can be attested by the 1930-preface’s vocabulary (culture/civilization). Let’s see more details of what characterizes Spengler’s and Wittgenstein’s time according to Spengler. A fundamental transition from (any) culture to civilization is the “transvaluation of values” (DW I: 24, 342). Religious values are replaced by self-interested pragmatism. For Spengler, this can be attested, for instance, in the functioning of economical relations and the introduction of the “absolute idea of money”: The city assumes the lead and control of economic history in replacing the primitive values of the land, which are for ever inseparable from the life and thought of the rustic, by the absolute idea of money as distinct from goods. (DW II: 97)

In this transition people begin to take “money-in-the-abstract” as the dominant value; it characterizes the beginning of the “dictatorship of money” (DW II: 98). Spengler thought that such a change had already taken place in Western culture. According to him, it begins with Enlightment and Liberalism, political and economical, whose guiding idea is a general notion of utility (usefulness) determining the motive of private and public action (DW I: 152).36 The dictatorship of money goes hand in hand with the decay of religion, Spengler thought. Atheism is nothing more than a necessary consequence of the end of culture (DW I: 409–410).37 In such a period, scientific research develops, but it is not center-stage. Only the ones who have the money make the final decisions: “it is never ideas, but always capital, that wins” (DW II: 356). Politics is controlled by money. It might seem that there is an effective political model (for instance, democratic parlia-

35 There are, indeed, many indications of the character of personal opinion in the Spenglerian remarks of the mentioned preface: “… I believe …”, “not a value judgment”, “I have no sympathy for” (CV: 6). 36 “Surrounded by a machine-technique that it [the spirit of our great cities] has itself created in surprising Nature’s most dangerous secret, the ‘law,’ it seeks to conquer history also technically, ‘theoretically and practically.’ ‘Usefulness,’ suitableness to purpose, is the great word which assimilates the one to the other. A materialist conception of history, ruled by laws of causal Nature, leads to the setting up of usefulness ideals such as ‘enlightenment,’ ‘humanity,’ ‘world-peace,’ as aims of world-history, to be reached by the ‘march of progress.’” (DW I: 152). 37 “But the megalopolitan is irreligious; this is part of his being, a mark of his historical position. Bitterly as he may feel the inner emptiness and poverty, earnestly as he may long to be religious, it is out of his power to be so. All religiousness in the Megalopolis rests upon self-deception” (DW I: 410).



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mentarianism), but those who have money control politics “unofficially” and determine political decisions: It is becoming an impressive spectacle (Schauspiel) for the multitude of the Orthodox, while the centre of gravity of big policy, already de jure transferred from the Crown to the people’s representatives, is passing de facto from the latter to unofficial groups and the will of unofficial personages. The World War almost completed this development. (DW II: 416)

As one would expect, the press is controlled by money and used to determine “public opinion”: […] in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune. (DW II: 401–402) […] the press serves him who owns it. It does not spread “free” opinion – it generates it. (DW II: 403)38

Spengler’s description of his time is, of course, embedded in his morphologic schema, which also provides a platform for his prediction of the end of Western Culture. The description, however, might be seen as a good presentation of his times, even if one does not accept his schema. One might simply not accept that such a description must always apply – to any culture at any time. I think that this is, indeed, the way we should understand Wittgenstein’s opinions, his personal views, in the mentioned 1930-preface, for Wittgenstein does not agree with Spengler’s morphological mould, as argued above. One might be inclined to call Spengler’s views pessimistic. I rather consider them reasonably realistic. 39 One must take into account, of course, that the period

38 Spengler’s understanding of the press and the mercantilism of his times is in touch with Kraus’ views, as can easily be attested, for instance, in his Die Welt ohne Blatt from 1920. The 1920 article is just part of Kraus’ sustained attack on the spirit of his times. For an account of Kraus’ critique of the press and modernity see Bouveresse 2001a and 2001c. 39 I would not worry about Wittgenstein’s so-called ‘pessimism’ (Cahill 2011: 131–134). More worrisome, I think, is Wittgenstein’s implied optimism concerning past ages. Putnam, in Philosophy and Our Mental Life, credits the following joke to Joseph Weizenbaum: “an optimist is a person who says ‘this is the best of all possible worlds’; and a pessimist is a person who says ‘you’re right’” (Putnam 1975: 295). I thank Paulo Faria for telling me the joke and for giving its reference. In any case, Russell is far more ‘pessimistic’ than Spengler in his The Scientific Outlook (1931), a forerunner of Orwell’s 1984.

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between the wars was not exactly a period in which the Western world showed its best. It was indeed, in Spengler’s vocabulary, a period on the verge of Caesarism. It is clear that Wittgenstein’s opinions concerning “our times” expressed in the 1930-preface are close to Spengler in its vocabulary and, arguably, in spirit.40 For Spengler, as I indicated above, our age, which began in the 19th century, is an age of the “transvaluation” of values (DW I: 342, 351–352). At the time that he wrote the 1930-preface Wittgenstein remarked using Nietzsche’s phrase: “Our age is really an age of the transvaluation of all values. (The procession of humankind turns a corner & what used to be the way up is now the way down etc.)” (PPO: 61; MS 183: 53 from 10.1930).41 Does this mean that his opinions concerning his times are derived from Spengler? Except for the use of Spengler’s vocabulary to make the point, one might well think that Wittgenstein had also thought himself the essential features of the thoughts expressed in the preface, as we will see now. One must also take into account that other early “influences” (not listed as influences by Wittgenstein in 1931) might have played a role.42 Evidently, other people shared strong opinions concerning the state of affairs at the time, including Kraus, Russell, and Keynes, to name only a few. In 1925

40 Note, however, that in 1947 Wittgenstein expressed some hope concerning his times: “Perhaps one day this civilization will produce a culture. When that happens there will be a real history of the discoveries of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, which will be deeply interesting” (CV: 64). There is nothing extraordinary in this hope, of course, after the end of World War II. What the “real history of discoveries” would look like is not clear to me. Perhaps, Wittgenstein meant that the ‘progress’ in the last centuries “looks greater than it is”, as the Nestroyan motto of the Philosophical Investigations indicates; perhaps, he meant that the kind of elucidatory work that Bolztmann and Hertz did in science would come to the front as the most relevant kind of scientific work done in the period. 41 The passage continues: “Did Nietzsche have in mind what is now happening & does his achievement consist in anticipating it & finding a word for it?” This is a Spenglerian question whose Spenglerian answer is Yes. Spengler admired Nietzsche’s questioning capacity, but did not see merit in his “innocent relativism” (DW I: 25). He thought Nietzsche had a “disposition to romantic championship of certain ethical creations” (DW I: 347). 42 I have in mind especially Wittgenstein’s agreement with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Kierkegaard, but if one looks at the very broad issues of the 1930-preface, one must also remember Nestroy (1962) who satirically criticizes the merkantilistischer Zeitgeist and the Zeit des Fortschrittes (pp. 225 and 229, respectively) already in the 19th century. Such Zeitgeist is indeed one of Wittgenstein’s worries. As is well known, the motto of the Philosophical Investigations is from Nestroy 1962 (Der Schuetzling). Moreover, such issues are directly related with Kraus’ critique of modernity (see Kraus 1912). Kraus’ influence on Wittgenstein is, perhaps, an early influence that best articulates a description of Wittgenstein’s times. Presumably, Wittgenstein admired Kraus before reading other critics of modernity like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Kierkegaard (I come back to them below).



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Keynes published A Short View of Russia, where he distinguishes two aspects of the new political system: a flawed economy and a promising new religion with values lost in the “egotistic capitalism” of his times.43 The “new religion” was particularly interesting to him because it could solve the “moral problem” of his age, which he describes as follows: At any rate to me it seems clearer every day that the moral problem of our age is concerned with the love of money, with the habitual appeal to the money motive in nine-tenths of the activities of life, with the universal striving after individual economic security as the prime object of endeavour, with the social approbation of money as the measure of constructive success, and with the social appeal to the hoarding instinct as the foundation of the necessary provision for the family and for the future. The decaying religions around us, which have less and less interest for most people unless it be as an agreeable form of magical ceremonial or of social observance, have lost their moral significance just because – unlike some of their earlier versions – they do not touch in the least degree on these essential matters. (Keynes 2009: 498; my emphasis)

The most fundamental trait of the “new religion” in Russia would be the subordination of business to religion, thought Keynes. This could mean the end of the “career of money-making”, which would lack importance. Contrary to what was happening “in England to-day”, “seeking a fortune in business” could turn into something as respectable as “the career of a gentleman burglar” (Keynes 2009: 500). A new religion in Russia could mean a return to “essential matters” and a “power against the egotistic atomism of the irreligious”, i.e., the capitalist system of his to-day England: “For modern capitalism is absolutely irreligious, without internal union, without much public spirit, often, though not always, a mere congeries of possessors and pursuers” (Keynes 2009: 500). One could summarize Keynes’ view by saying that the capitalist irreligiousness is the transvaluation of values of our civilization and that one might expect that in Russia those values would suffer a new transvaluation with the creation of a new culture. The criti-

43 Russell, as perhaps many at the time, had already pointed out the religious character of the Russian revolution in his The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920): “The war has left throughout Europe a mood of disillusionment and despair which calls aloud for a new religion, as the only force capable of giving men the energy to live vigorously. Bolshevism has supplied the new religion. […] It promises a world where all men and women shall be kept sane by work, and where all work shall be of value to the community, not only to a few wealthy vampires” (Russell 1920: 17; my emphasis). Note that the idea of communitarian motives determines the new religion (a characteristic of a Culture for Spengler). Russell, in fact, compared very skeptically, as one expects from Russell, the hopes of Communism with the Sermon of the Mount: “The hopes which inspire Communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically, and are likely to do as much harm” (Russell 1920: 16).

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cal spirit of Spengler’s description of his times is very close to Keynes’ picture of the moral problem of a money-seeking society that has lost essential religious values and preserved only “an agreeable form of magical ceremonial or of social observance”. It is also in line with Wittgenstein’s indication of the fragmentation of forces in our “unimpressive spectacle of a crowd whose best members work for purely private ends”, which is simply a sign of “an age without a culture”, as he says in the 1930-preface (CV: 6). Those facts are relevant, for in 1927, two years after the publication of Keynes’ “little book”, and at least two years before Wittgenstein mentioned Spengler, Wittgenstein told Keynes that he liked the “little book” and that it showed that Keynes knew “that there are more things between heaven and earth etc.” (WC: 162). This opinion, of course, is a sign of agreement with Keynes; but also an indication of agreement (a thought already thought by Wittgenstein) with Spengler. Agreement between Spengler, Keynes, and Wittgenstein can also be found in their views of a “new religion” in Russia. Spengler thought that the “Russian soul” was already prepared for the rise of a new religion (DW I: 309). In Spengler’s view, however, the Socialist system (which he associates with Tolstoy’s work, a “Bolshevik”), was not yet the new culture; in fact he thought it was one of the developments of Western declining culture (DW I: 356). However, a new great religion (which he associates with the work of Dostoevsky) was emerging in Russia: “Tolstoi is the former Russia, Dostoyevski the coming Russia” (DW II: 193). The “coming Russia”, according to Spengler, would be characterized by the denial of Western values (or lack of values) and the introduction of a kind of Dostoevskyan religion. The new religion would have traits of “primitive Christianity” and “primitive Russianism”, both characterized by an indifference concerning the “things of this world”, i.e., a negation of the contemporary love of money and cult of the useful (DW II: 193–196). The following passage is concise enough: The Russian does not fight Capital, but he does not comprehend it. Anyone who understands Dostoyevski will sense in these people a young humanity for which as yet no money exists, but only goods in relation to a life whose centre of gravity does not lie on the economical side. […] for a townless barter-thinking, money-getting by means of money is an impiety, and (from the view-point of the coming Russian religion) a sin. To-day […] he has freed himself from the Western economy […] The Russian of the deeps to-day is bringing into being a third kind of Christianity, still priestless, and built on the John Gospel […]. (DW II: 495, footnote 3)

Coherent with his morphological schema, Spengler ends this passage by foreseeing the very decline of the supposedly yet emerging Russian culture. As I already pointed out, Spengler’s morphology is not in touch with Wittgenstein’s thoughts. However, as is well known, Wittgenstein very much admired Tolstoy



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and Dostoevsky throughout his adult life. Although it is very unlikely that Wittgenstein shared Spengler’s judgment about Tolstoy (see NCW: 86), he shared, as the 1930-preface shows, some of Spengler’s and Keynes’ views concerning the Western cult of usefulness and money. Moreover, it is reasonably clear that he was convinced of the growth of a possible new culture and “new religion” in Russia (perhaps a future culture inspired by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky). One could say, he expected a “new age” in a yet to come Russia, i.e., the dominance of a “religious point of view”. One must presume that Wittgenstein, as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, was deeply interested in the way of life of simple people in Russia. He was not an admirer of the then current socialism, which was still a product of “our times” (CV: 6), but decided to go to Russia anyway. When he commented on his desire to go there in a letter to Keynes from 1935, he wrote that he was sure that Keynes would “understand his reasons for wanting to go to Russia” and admitted: “they [the reasons] are partly bad and even childish but it is true also that behind all there are deep and even good reasons” (WC: 245). Even though Russia was still far from a “new culture”, the country could be seen as at least partially free from the dominating unreligious cult of money and usefulness of the West. Aside from Wittgenstein’s agreement with Keynes’ “little book” one cannot forget that he in fact systematically planned to live in Russia, went there, and got a job offer to teach in the university where Tolstoy studied (see Pascal 1984: 18–30; WC: 244–249; CW: 125). One must also keep in mind that the lack of interest in the money-culture and the “cult of the useful” are already reflected in Wittgenstein’s abdication of his fortune in 1920.44 All this suggests a very old personal thought of Wittgenstein. Actually, Wittgenstein expressed the wish to go to Russia as early as 1922 in a letter to Paul Engelmann: “The idea of a possible flight to Russia which we talked about keeps on haunting me” (Engelmann, P., 1968: 53; from 14.9.1922). Before going further, I will deal with two possible objections in order to make my point clearer. Could not such a wish, however, be a sign of an early influence of Spengler? Klagge thinks that the “possible flight to Russia in 1922 suggests that his [Wittgenstein’s] interest was instigated earlier by reading Spengler” (Klagge 2011: 76). In fact, the publication of Spengler’s Preussentum und Sozialismus (1920) gives plausibility to Klagge’s suggestion, for there Spengler develops ideas about Russia that guide Part II of his major work published in 1922. However, a more interesting instigation for Wittgenstein’s wish to go to Russia in 1922 can be found in a German translation of several of Dostoevsky’s small works in 1921. In “Pushkin Speech”, for instance, Dostoevsky expresses the view according to which Europe is “on the eve of ruin” (1972: 86), and he declares

44 See McGuinness, 1988: chapter 8.

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explicitly that his religiosity came from “our people” (1972: 65). He predicts that a yet to come Russia (“our [Russian]children to come”) will bring a new religious view to Europe (1972: 58). Moreover, there are other deep reasons to think that an early influence of Spengler did not take place. Paul Engelmann never mentions Spengler in his Memoir, in spite of discussing other influences and “the Russians”. Note that in the letter just quoted Wittgenstein says that he “talked about” the “flight to Russia” with him. If the reason for his early plan were Spengler’s views, it would be something that Paul would mention in his book. The fact that Spengler’s name is not even mentioned by Paul in his Memoir suggests that Wittgenstein’s contact with Spengler’s work took place after the years of their close friendship (i.e., after the period 1916–1927). However, the most serious reasons against an early influence of Spengler are the following. Wittgenstein himself says that he had thought most of Spengler’s important thoughts before reading him (see section  1). Moreover, one of the thoughts that Wittgenstein thought before reading Spengler concerns “multiple complete systems”. Note that Wittgenstein explicitly mentioned that thought in a MS (see section 1). Since this is a view that Wittgenstein only developed in 1929–30, his remark on Spengler’s thoughts would be a lie or expression of self-deception, if he had read Spengler in the early twenties. Therefore, I think that the most plausible explanation of the wish to go to Russia already in 1922 is Wittgenstein’s own thoughts; very likely, those were about the possible growth of a new culture or religion there. We must take into account his early admiration for Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and the impact of the Russian revolution at the time. Note that both writers were impressed by the religious way of life of the simple people of Russia (see My Confession and The Pushkin Speech, respectively).45 Kienzler (2013) and Brusotti (2014) have also suggested an early Spenglerian influence on Wittgenstein. They think that what suggests such an influence is the fragment of a letter written by Wittgenstein probably to his sister Hermine, probably in 1925. The fragment was found with the family of Wittgenstein’s lifelong friend Ludwig Haensel, and it has been named The Human Being in the Bell Jar in reference to the metaphor used in the letter (Wittgenstein 2004b). Besides the reasons given above against an early influence, there are reasons to think that the point of view expressed in that fragment is not Spenglerian. As far as I can see, the sole view there with a Spenglerian flavor is this: “With the beginning of the 19th century humanity (die Menscheit) bumped into the limit of Western culture”

45 However, if Wittgenstein really needed a report concerning Russia’s new culture and its present or future “religion”, he could have found it in Russell (1920) (see footnote 43). He met Russell at the end of 1919 and knew about his trip to Russia in 1920 (WC: 120).



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(Wittgenstein 2004b: 45). It is, I think, a deceiving flavor. Note that in the passage quoted Wittgenstein conflates ‘humanity’ and ‘Western culture’. Spengler thinks that there is no such thing as the humanity (see DW I: introduction). Now, the very idea of the decline of Western culture in the 19th century is not properly Spenglerian, for it is shared by many. It certainly expresses Kierkegaard’s point of view concerning his “present age”, and it is a more or less obvious assumption in Kraus’ journal Die Fackel and in von Ficker’s “Christian” journal Der Brenner, journals that Wittgenstein read in the 1910’s. Other deceiving flavor in the fragment, I think, comes from the word ‘culture’. One might be inclined to think that it is Spengler’s jargon, but it is not. Note that only the word ‘culture’ is used; Spengler’s jargon ‘culture-civilization’ does not appear in the fragment. Moreover, there are several views expressed in the fragment that go against Spengler’s views. Wittgenstein denies, for instance, the Spenglerian cultural relativity of religion with the metaphor of human beings living inside various “bell jars” (cultures) on which shines the same “light” (Christianity or the Gospel, I presume; see below). Those “jars” give “colorations” to the same “light” that shines through them (Wittgenstein 2004b: 44–5). Typical of Spengler is the thought that ‘Christianity’ appears in two different cultures, namely, “Arabic” and “Faustian”, but Wittgenstein does take into account such a view, which would be relevant in the context of the fragment (Kienzler (2013) makes this point). It is also very striking that Wittgenstein uses the “migration period” to demarcate Western European history in the fragment, which is a view that is denied by Spengler (see DW I: 22). Even though the fragment is not Spenglerian, the reason why Wittgenstein wrote it might well be indirectly related to Spengler. Wittgenstein’s lifelong friend Haensel read Spengler at the end of 1921 (Haensel 2012: 94, 98, 99). There is no direct evidence in Haensel’s diaries that he discussed Spengler with Wittgenstein, but one may well imagine that they talked about it at some point after 10.1921. If they talked about Spengler, it does not mean, of course, that Wittgenstein read him. One can certainly doubt that Haensel’s opinion about Spengler at the time would encourage Wittgenstein to do so. However, the relevant story that links Spengler and the 1925-fragment began in 1919. When they met in Monte Cassino, Haensel’s faith in the Catholic Church and its dogmas was threatened by Wittgenstein’s philosophy of silence and his Tolstoian (and Kierkegaardian) understanding of the Gospels. Haensel points out that Wittgenstein had “unshakeable faith” in Tolstoy’s understanding of the gospels (Haensel 2012: 55). According to Haensel, such an understanding of the gospels means that “God as a creator” is not a relevant belief (2012: 51). It also means that the fundamental in the Gospels is only its “moral demand” and that “everything historical, miraculous […] dogmatic has no value, [and] must be dismissed” (Haensel 2012: 76; from 1919). The dismissal of dogmatism and the possibility of acceptance of the moral demand of

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the Gospels are, I take it, in agreement with the logical point of view of the Tractatus (see section 1). Obviously, Wittgenstein’s views challenged Haensel’s catholic faith, as he repeatedly wrote in his 1919 diaries (Haensel 2012: 45, 51, 56–7, 59–60). Two years later, at the end of 1921, Haensel’s catholic worries reappeared when he read Spengler. In the middle of his uncertainties, he wrote: “I still need the form of culture of the church” (Haensel 2012: 96). So Wittgenstein’s metaphor of the bell jar and light is a metaphorical presentation of views that he introduced to Haensel already in 1919, but they might have been colored by later conversations with him – perhaps conversations about religion, cultural relativity, and Spengler. One of Wittgenstein’s points in the 1925-fragment, as in his discussions with Haensel in 1919 and 1921, is that dogmas and Catholicism are not essential to a religious point of view. In fact, they distort it and might deceive one into thinking that an appearance of religion is real religion. According to the metaphor of the bell jar, Haensel might be someone who “takes his [colored] light for the light, and not for a particular kind of the cloudiness of the one light” (Wittgenstein 2004b: 44). However, against Spengler, the point of Wittgenstein’s metaphor is that religion (the light) is distorted by its cultural wrappings. So the fragment expresses Wittgenstein’s view according to which “only Christianity is always modern (each culture has its limited time)” (Haensel 2012: 96; from 1921).46 Such a view Haensel also attributes to Kierkegaard (2012: 99). In fact, Kierkegaard’s voice (not only Tolstoy’s) is quite loud in the 1925-fragment – but see also Dostoevsky (1972: 64–6, 82, 88–9). As Tolstoy, Kierkegaard ferociously attacked the “colored” interpretation of the Gospels in his religious community (Kierkegaard 1946). Moreover, the jargon of the fragment is Kierkegaardian. “The religious” seems to refer to the religious sphere, “humor” and “melancholy” to the aesthetic sphere/category – see Kierkegaard 1959: preface; 2009a: 362–366; 2009b: 43–48). One might also say, from a Kierkegaardian religious point of view, that the purpose of the light and bell jar metaphor is to distinguish Christianity from the “illusion of Christendom” (see Kierkegaard 2009b: 41–47). In any case, if someone influenced Wittgenstein’s views at the time of the 1925-fragment, it was not Spengler, a thinker who was unable to see, according to Wittgenstein, the magnitude of Kierkegaard’s works (MS 183: 210; PPO: 219). However, Spengler and Kierkegaard (but also Keynes) agree upon at least a fundamental declining sign of modernity: “that it was an age of disintegration” (Kierkegaard 2009b: 119). In such an age, “a penetrating religious renunciation

46 The fact that the point of view of the fragment relates to previous discussions with Haensel could at least partially explain why Haensel ended up in possession of a fragment of a letter to Wittgenstein’s sister Hermine.



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of the world and what is of the world […] would be inconceivable to the youth” (Kierkegaard 2009c: 71). The most desired object of the age is “token money, an abstraction”: “A young man today would scarcely envy another his capacities or his skill or the love of a beautiful girl or his fame, no, but he would envy him his money. Give me money, the young man will say, and I will be alright” (2009c: 75). Disintegration and love of money are aspects of the “cult of the useful” of our times. Frazer will show us another one.

5 W  ittgenstein Reads Frazer: The Real Foundations of the Inquiry As we have seen, on the one hand, there are many instances of Wittgenstein’s “old thoughts” that are completely in touch with Spengler’s views. Those concern results of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and opinions about “our times”. On the other hand, Wittgenstein’s critiques touch upon fundamental aspects of Spengler’s thoughts and his “religious point of view” is not properly Spenglerian. So Spengler’s ‘influence’ at the time cannot be understood as anything close to a derivation of ideas. Rather, it is to be taken as broadening, extending, and helping to articulate Wittgenstein’s old ideas about “our times”.47 The first set of remarks on Frazer, I suggest, are part of Wittgenstein’s concerns with the elucidation of broader issues concerning the position of his philosophy in his times. Why did Wittgenstein read Frazer? And why did he write the first set of remarks? I will first answer the latter and then the former question. Before doing this, we must look at Spengler’s work once more.48 Whether Spengler had read Frazer before writing his book is not clear. However, Frazer was certainly one of those who defended the schema of progress criticized by Spengler (compare DW II: 38 with GB: 415). Moreover, Spengler opposed Frazer’s kind of comparative anthropology:

47 I am, thus, in agreement with one of von Wright’s lines of argument: “… it is rather that Spengler’s work had reinforced and helped him [Wittgenstein] to articulate this view [of life]” (1980: 212). 48 I am not suggesting, of course, that Wittgenstein did not know of Frazer’s work before reading Spengler or that he would not have been interested in reading him for other reasons (say, interest in significant works at the time, the intellectual atmosphere in Cambridge, etc.). What I intend to elucidate is if there is a reason for Wittgenstein to read Frazer’s book at the time he indeed read it for the first time.

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The ethnologist-psychologist […] delights in collecting, from all over the five continents, fragments of peoples who really have nothing in common but the negative fact of living a subordinate existence in the middle of one or another of the high Cultures, without participation in its inner life. The result is a congeries of tribes, some stationary, some inferior, and some decadent whose respective modes of expression, moreover, are indiscriminately lumped together. (DW II: 35)

Frazer “lumps together” many different cultures. This is, indeed, the rule in The Golden Bough, and not the exception. He “lumps together” not only different cultures from different places, but also from different times. He infers, for instance, ancient customs of “primitive people” from an analogy with contemporary rituals of “primitive people” and “relics” and “remnants” of rituals of European “not cultivated” people, and vice-versa (for example, GB: 61, 127, 143, 183, 476, 486, 508, 665, 774). This is what grounds his “explanation” of “the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia” (GB, preface to the abridged version). This explanation was, as he puts it, the “primary aim” of his book. Frazer’s comparative ethnology-psychology supposedly uncovers the structure of the “primitive mind” that follows “primitive laws” or “primitive laws of thought” – also called a “general theory” of the primitives (GB: 23). The “general theory”, according to Frazer, consists in the law of similarity or homeopathic magic (“like produces like or that the effect resembles its cause”) and the law of contact or contagious magic (“things which have been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed”) (GB: 12).49 In the primitive laws, according to Frazer, we can at least find a similarity with science, for, after all, “the magician does not doubt that the same causes will always produce the same effects” (GB: 56). All the mistakes of “primitive peoples” are grounded in their “laws of thought” (GB: 57). Those primitive laws of thought constitute the “primitive mind”. The idea of ‘primitive mind’ and Frazer’s analogical inferences – his “lumping together” of many peoples scattered in time and space – seem to give mutual support (GB: 448). Analogies supposedly show that there is such a thing as a ‘primitive mind’ and the notion of ‘primitive mind’ seems to allow him to think that analogies must be found. Frazer’s synoptic view or hypothesis about “primitive people” is, thus, not merely a historical-causal-evolutionary account of rituals and religion. It also

49 This, for him, characterizes a “false science”: “homeopathic magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which resemble each other are the same; contagious magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which have once been in contact with each other are always in contact” (GB: 13).



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ascribes a primitive and false “causality principle” to the “primitives”. This, however, is not the sole “association of ideas” that he thinks “primitives” employ. Quite interestingly, it turns out that the primitive mind is guided by modern utility, the modern idea of usefulness. Primitives always act with one motive: they want to increase their profits (power, food, health). This is an interpretational principle that Frazer always employs, but never clearly states – perhaps because it was deemed too obvious at the time. It is what guides Frazer’s ‘explanations’. For him, “primitives” apply the laws of homeopathic and contagious magic in order to achieve benefits (GB: 16, 85–86, 259, 617). Note here his reasoning: Now primitive peoples, as we have seen, sometimes believe that their safety and even that the world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men or human incarnations of the divinity. Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost care of his life, out of regard for their own. (GB: 309; my emphasis) 50

“Primitive people” are cunningly selfish, but they are not very intelligent (GB: 13).51 They always work for their own advantage – presumably as we always do – but their means for achieving benefits determined by their “savage mind” are too primitive: they are afraid of thunder, therefore they pray and make rituals according to the principles; they want good crops, therefore they make sacrifices according to their false principles; they need rain, therefore they make raincharms and negotiate with their gods according to their principles. The bargain with gods is what supposedly characterizes religion, a post-magic step in human evolution in which “mighty beings” are used for our benefit: […] it [religion] clearly assumes that the course of nature is to some extent elastic or variable, and that we can persuade or induce the mighty beings who control it to deflect, for our

50 Other examples can be listed: “[…] the pretence that a child has been born is a purely magical rite designed to secure, by means of imitation or mimicry, that a child really shall be born” (GB: 16); “… the Rain-maker was sure to become a rich man if he gained a great reputation, and it would manifestly never do for the chief to allow any to be too rich” (GB: 99); “These fisher folk, we are told, worship the whale on account of the benefits they derive from” (GB: 259). 51 See GB: 624: “The devices to which the cunning and selfish savage resorts for the sake for easing himself at the expense of his neighbour are manifold”. Renan, as Frazer, did not have a good opinion of our ancestors: “We must assume primitive humanity to have been very malevolent. The chief characteristics of man for many centuries were craft, a refinement of cunning, and a degree of lubricity, which, like that of the monkey, knew neither times nor seasons” (History of the People of Israel; Renan 1888, I: 3). The coincident opinion of Frazer and Renan might reflect a common belief of the period. However, perhaps coincidences are due to the fact that Renan’s work was an inspiration for Frazer – I owe this detail to Hacker (2001).

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benefit, the current of events from the channel in which they would otherwise flow. (GB: 59; my emphasis)

Of course, one does not have to deny that human beings have done such things. Wittgenstein does not deny it.52 For Frazer, however, religious “primitive people” are always in a kind of market, negotiating with obscure entities. In his view, this is the purpose of religious rituals. An interesting example, one among too many, is the atonement of slaughter. In many tribes, people go through various purifying rituals after killing an enemy or an animal. Why do they do that? In Frazer’s view, because they are afraid of ghosts, because they don’t want to miss the opportunity to slaughter animals in the future, and similar, say, selfish usefulness-motives.53 Could they do it not for reasons grounded in a calculus of benefits but because they hold nature in awe, they venerate their surroundings, they are thankful to the gods, or because they have a profound respect for what they kill and eat? Frazer does not take those possibilities seriously (see GB: 246–260). His views on “primitive worship of animals” can be summarized in the following remark: Thus the primitive worship of animals conforms to two types, which are in some respects the converse of each other. On the one hand, animals are worshipped, and are therefore neither killed nor eaten. On the other hand animals are worshipped because they are habitually killed and eaten. In both types of worship the animal is revered on account of some benefit, positive or negative, which the savage hopes to receive from it. (GB: 617; my emphasis)

Even when their ritual actions strongly suggest that they hold something in awe, Frazer sees a mere selfish worry underlying them. In light of Frazer’s own examples this is, however, far from obvious, especially when his description is rich in details, as this one: When a dead whale is washed ashore, the people accord it a solemn burial. The man who first caught sight of it acts as chief mourner, performing the acts which as chief mourner and heir he would perform for a human kinsman. He puts on all the garb of woe, the straw hat, the white robe with long sleeves turned inside out, and the other paraphernalia of full mourning. As next of kin to the deceased he presides over the funeral rites. Perfumes are

52 See AWL: 33: “People at one time thought it useful to kill a man, sacrifice him to the god of fertility, in order to produce good crops. But it is not true that something is always done because it is useful.” 53 GB: 250: “[…] the purpose of their seclusion and of the expiatory rites […] is, as we have been led to believe, no other than to shake off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of the slain man […]”.



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burned, sticks of incense kindled, leaves of gold and silver scattered, crackers let off. When the flesh has been cut off and the oil extracted, the remains of the carcase are buried in the sand. Afterwards a shed is set up and offerings are made in it. Usually some time after the burial the spirit of the dead whale takes possession of some person in the village and declares by his mouth whether he is a male or a female. (GB: 259)

Supposedly, the “fear of the ghost” of the dead animal is what motivates such rituals; however, after all the rituals, the ghost takes possession anyway. Supposedly, the gains of the performance determine the motives behind rituals. However, it is striking that the whole ritual looks so much like the ones that we are inclined to perform in the case of the death of a loved one when we are truly close to the deceased and feel the need for a ritual (see Wittgenstein’s remark on Schubert’s brother; RFGB: 127). Frazer could have thought that “the form of the Awakening spirit is veneration” (RFGB: 139) rather than the application of principles that generate gains; that not everything that is important or significant must be useful. Frazer’s restricted view of motives, I take it, is his most fundamental blindness. Frazer’s blindness, for Wittgenstein, was just part of our “unimpressive spectacle” of being motivated by “private ends” (CV: 6).54 Frazer really seems to think that he was dealing with a parson of his time when he described “primitives” and their priests (RFGB: 125). He could not “conceive of a life different from that of the England of his time!” (RFGB: 125). In the end, he simply does not realize the grounds of his investigation: The real foundations of their inquiry don’t strike people at all. Unless, at some point, he has noticed that / he has become aware of that / fact. (Frazer, etc., etc.). And this means that he is not struck by what is most striking (most powerful). (MS 110: 259; in BT: 419; slightly modified translation)55

What is most striking (the real foundations of the inquiry) does not strike Frazer at all. The “real foundations” are not restricted to his ‘scientific’ evolutionary explanations grounded in the assumption that primitives have “a false notion of causation” (GB: 234). Frazer, in a certain sense, was aware of those foundations. What is really striking, as I have tried to show, is the fact that Frazer grounds

54 ‘Spectacle’ (Schauspiel) is quite often used by Spengler to indicate cultural events to be noticed, but also phenomena that lack substance, mere appearance (DW II: 356 and 416; the latter quoted above). 55 This remark appears in TS 211, 283, TS 212, 1157, TS 213 (BT), 419 and appears modified in the Philosophical Investigations, §115.

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his inquiry in the idea that any human being must act in order to seek greater advantages, that the motive behind actions must be usefulness. In Moore’s notes from 1932–33, Wittgenstein is reported to have said that a fundamental misconception in Frazer’s book is precisely this: “that it was a mistake to suppose that the motive is always ‘to get something useful’” (Moore 1966: 309). According to Ambrose and McDonald’s notes, Wittgenstein said that “the idea that underlies” Frazer’s method is that “every time what is sought is the motive” and the motive is that “something is always done because it is useful” (AWL: 33).56 “The charm of this outlook”, concludes Wittgenstein, “is that it reduces importance to utility” (AWL: 33–34).57 I conjecture, therefore, that Wittgenstein thought that it was important to criticize Frazer because of his one sided view, his assumption of the cult of usefulness as the fundamental motive underlying any ritual. In other words, Frazer is blind to an important trait of a religious point of view. His blindness, one might suspect, is typical of “our civilization”. By showing the real foundations of Frazer’s inquiry, Wittgenstein could make his reader aware of alternative views or worldviews. Frazer ends up being a good example of the spectacle of Wittgenstein’s time (CV: 6). Thus, the 1930-preface and the critique of Frazer go hand in hand, for the latter shows how Wittgenstein’s worldview was not in agreement with “the spirit of the main current of European and American civilizations” (CV: 6).58 Such a “spirit” seems to deny what one might call a “religious point of view”, for it accepts the model of scientific final explanations and the cult of the useful.

56 The relevant passage is the following: “But it is not true that something is always done because it is useful. At least this is not the sole reason. Destruction of an effigy may have its own complex of feelings without being connected with an ancient practice, or with usefulness. […] A tendency which has come into vogue with the modern sciences is to explain certain things by evolution. Darwin seemed to think that an emotion got its importance from one thing only, utility. […] The charm of this outlook is that it reduces importance to utility” (AWL: 33–34). Compare this passage with Spengler’s view expressed here: “The cult of the useful was set up on high. To it Darwin, in the name of his century, sacrificed Goethe’s Nature-theory. The organic logic of the facts of life was supplanted by a mechanics in physiological garb. Heredity, adaptation, natural selection, are utility-causes of purely mechanical connotation” (DW I: 155). One might think – correctly, as far as I can see – that Spengler’s and Wittgenstein’s appraisals of Darwin in the passages just quoted aren’t fair to him. However, they seem to be fair to 19th-century “Darwinism”. 57 This, as we have seen, is also part of Keynes’ and Spengler’s critique of their irreligious times. 58 This suggests that the 1930-preface and the remarks on Frazer would be used in the same book. Such a plan is not followed through, however (see the sixth desideratum in the introduction).



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Spengler certainly does not reduce everything human beings do (also “primitives”) to utility (usefulness). The very belief that everything is to be explained with such a reduction is for Spengler, as we have seen, one of the traits of a decaying culture. It is a fundamental trait of our culture/civilization manifested, in Spengler’s view, by 19th-century ‘materialism’ in all its forms: Utilitarianism, Socialism, and Darwinism (DW I: 150–157, 369–374). Spengler’s project opposes such a “cult of the useful” (DW I: 156). Spengler’s views on “primitives”, however, are problematic. He talks about the “awaking consciousness” or “a pure awakening of inwardness” (DW II: 133, 279) of “primitives”, which consists in wonder and the recognition and need for others. One could say that, for Spengler, “the characteristic feature of the awakening mind is precisely the fact that a phenomenon comes to have meaning to him” and that “the form of the awakening spirit is veneration” (RFGB: 129 and 139, respectively). However, a proper “awakening” cannot be ascribed to “primitive peoples”, for they don’t have and cannot have a culture in the proper Spenglerian sense (DW I: 174). Inside Spengler’s morphological schema there is no real space for “primitive peoples”: “Historical” man […] is the man of a Culture that is in full march towards self-fulfillment. Before this, after this, outside this, man is historyless; and the destinies of the people to which he belongs matter as little as the Earth’s destiny matters when the plane of attention is the astronomical and not the geological. (DW II: 49)

“Primitive peoples” do not even have myths: I make the assumption that that which a primitive folk – like the Egyptians of Thinite times, the Jews and Persians before Cyrus, the heroes of the Mycenean burghs and the Germans of the Migrations – possesses in the way of religious ideas is not yet myth in the higher sense. It may well be a sum of scattered and irregular traits, of cults adhering to names, fragmentary saga: pictures, but it is not yet a divine order, a mythic organism, and I no more regard this as myth than I regard the ornament of that stage as art. (DW I: 399)

What takes place in “primitive peoples”, according to Spengler, is just “chaos of undeveloped imagery” (DW I: 399), for they do not have a “soul” (in Spengler’s sense) that creates a proper culture. According to Spengler, primitive culture “is essentially chaotic”; it is “neither an organism nor a sum of organisms” (DW II:  35). This kind of judgment might prompt Spengler’s readers to worry about a too narrow view, especially because of his own analogy between culture and organism and because of his criticisms of the traditional view on history, which does not take into account the diversity that underlies, for instance, the Middle

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Age (DW I: 22). Spengler seems to take out of the picture all cultures that don’t share certain features that he thinks must constitute a Culture. The lack of a place for “primitive peoples” (or cultures) in Spengler’s schema is another example of his “irresponsibilities” (PPO: 25; MS 183: 16; quoted above, section 1). In the end, paraphrasing Spengler, one must conclude that his view also is an expression of “the lordly outlook of the West European” that will only notice what is very close to his own Western culture; consequently, “that which goes its own ways will get but little of his attention” (DW II: 38). Little attention, indeed, is given to cultures that don’t fulfill his West European expectations or standards for a culture. An attentive reader gathers that, in fact, Spengler’s schema is too narrow. Such a fact would not have escaped, in any case, a reader as critical as Wittgenstein. I conjecture, therefore, that Wittgenstein decided to read Frazer at the time he first read it in order to better understand the gap concerning “primitive cultures” in Spengler’s book. Wittgenstein’s movement from Spengler’s to Frazer’s work is bridged by Renan’s The History of the People of Israel.59 Among the “primitives”, Spengler includes “the Jews and Persians before Cyrus” (DW I: 399), which is one of the subjects of Renan’s book.60 The book is mentioned and briefly discussed by Wittgenstein precisely in the intermezzo between his first remarks on Spengler and Frazer.61 Wittgenstein might have thought that it would be important to look for more information about “primitive cultures” after reading Spengler and Renan.62 He was obviously disappointed with Renan’s book (CV: 5). So the remark on Renan indicates an interesting move: he passed from Renan to Frazer looking

59 Wittgenstein’s use of Spengler’s “awakening” vocabulary is quite striking in his remarks on Frazer and in his critique of Renan. 60 It is a book that shares Frazer’s prose concerning the evolution of mankind (see MS 109: 200–202; CV: 5). 61 Remarks on Spengler appear first in 05.1930 (MS 183: 17–21); the remarks on Renan in 11.1930 (MS109: 200–202); the remarks on Frazer in 06.1931 (MS 110: 179–184). 62 It is interesting to observe that Tolstoy criticized Renan in Gospel in Brief, a book that was quite important for Wittgenstein (see Notebooks 1914–16). He criticizes scholars who consider Jesus merely a historical figure: “The representatives of this school, to begin with Renan, the most popular of them, do not see it their duty to take the trouble of distinguishing between that which bears the stamp of Jesus Himself and that which His interpreters have wrongly ascribed to Him. And, instead of thus troubling to search out the teaching of Jesus Himself a little more deeply than the Churches have done, they have been led to seek in the events of His life, and in the facts of history contemporary with Him, the explanation of His influence and of the diffusion of His ideas” (Tolstoy 1922, preface). The connection between Tolstoy and Renan could give us some clues, I think, to deal with the ninth desideratum (see introduction).



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for an account missing in Spengler. In any case, shortcomings of Spengler’s work constitute a good reason for him to read Frazer at the time.63

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63 Thanks to Craig Fox, James Klagge, and Andrew Lugg for comments on a draft of this paper.

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Steen Brock

A Conception of Modern Life as “the Awakening of the Human Spirit, Revisited” Wittgenstein’s Early Remarks on Frazer as a Philosophy of Culture Abstract: By reference to Stanley Cavell’s characterization of the later Wittgenstein’s writings as expressing a “philosophy of culture”, it is argued that this characterization also might cast a light on Wittgenstein’s early remarks on Frazer. In relation to this I show that three aspects in conjunction of a Wittgensteinian understanding of culture, which are highlighted by Cavell, underscore the significance of the notion of a “perspicuous representation”. Finally, I trace the development of some crucial ideas in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus concerning what I call a “constellation” of philosophical focal points. I argue that a gradual transformation within this constellation also culminates in the idea of a perspicuous representation, not the least due to a change in Wittgenstein’s assessment of the notion of an operation, both within and outside of mathematics. All in all, the paper presents how a “morphology of operations” adds to a new kind of comparative cultural understanding. As such Wittgenstein both follows and criticizes Spengler’s method in Untergang des Abendlandes.

1 Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Culture In the text “Declining Decline: Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Culture” (Cavell 1989) Stanley Cavell discusses several issues in regard to PI which taken together explain the adequacy of reading the PI as a “philosophy of culture”. Cavell writes: Philosophy’s virtue is its responsiveness. What makes it philosophy is not that its response will be total, but that it will be tireless, awake when the others have fallen asleep. Its commitment is to hear itself called on – but only then, and only in so far as it has an interest – to speak. Any word my elders have bequeathed to me as they moved obscurely toward the objects of their desires may come to chagrin me. All my words are the words of others. What but philosophy, of a certain kind, would tolerate the thought? (Cavell 1989: 74–75)

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Here philosophy is seen not as a special science that provides “major” views about, say, justice, rationality, morality, and other “markers” of a given culture. Philosophy enters a culture the way in which a single person – by reminding his fellows of something they have forgotten or would rather not see – can change a whole situation. We are reminded of H. C. Andersen’s fairytale about The Emperor’s Clothes. Also it is the figure of a child that changes the situation, and this figure is, according to Cavell, crucial both in understanding what a culture is and how the PI is concerned with culture: In the culture depicted by the Investigations we are all teachers and all students – talkers, hearers, overhearers, hearsayers, believers, explainers; we are all elders and all children, wanting a hearing, for our injusticies, for our justices. Now imagine a world in which the voice of the interlocutors of the Investigations continue on, but in which there is no Wittgensteinian voice as their other. It would be a world in which our danger to one another grew faster than our help for one another. (Cavell 1989: 75) The Investigations is a work that begins with a scene of inheritance, the child’s inheritance of a language; it is an image of a culture as an inheritance […]. The figure of the child is present in this portrait of civilization more prominently and decisively than in any other work of philosophy […]. It discovers childhood for philosophy […]. The child demands consent of its culture, attention from it; it may never forgive the cost of extracting it, or of failing to. (Cavell 1989: 60)

I think that Cavell’s reading of the later Wittgenstein is of help in assessing the early remarks on Frazer. For in a certain sense, the earlier Wittgenstein was already concerned with “scenes of inheritance”, and how we “have become each other’s teachers and pupils”. Since this is not the place to give a full-blown account of the philosophy of Cavell, I want just to highlight three parts of Cavell’s characterization of Wittgenstein as a “philosopher of culture”: First there is the view that a form of life for Wittgenstein means a form of life, and where the three dimensions of nature, human nature, and culture come together. We should recognize a constant change in all three dimensions within this constellation. The conditions of our lives do not have a preconfigured shape or force. Our abilities and needs for coping with the conditions, and our aspirations and hopes for a future, humanized world are changing in principle all the time. No moral, political, or religious outlook can release us from the conditions of our lives, nor should they. Similarly, these conditions and how they can be met, do not point us in any given historical or cultural direction. It is in this context that Wittgenstein’s notion of criteria becomes important. These do in a certain sense anchor cultures in that they (in a special sense) “constitute” the way in which differences and tensions within the culture are regulated.



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If, for example, you know what in the life of everyday language counts as – what are the criteria for – arriving at an opinion, and holding firmly to an opinion, and trying to change someone’s […] opinion of someone or something […] and for having no or low opinion of something, and for being opinionated, and being indifferent to an opinion […] And similar things; then you know what an opinion is, and you will presumably understand why Wittgenstein will say “I am not of the opinion that he has a soul (PI, II, p.178)” (Cavell 1989: 50)

So I suggest we juxtapose this notion of “criteria” with the following “mutual absorption of the natural and the social”: This mutual absorption of the natural and the social is a consequence of Wittgensten’s envisioning of what we may well call the human form of life. In being asked to accept this, or suffer it, as given for ourselves, we are not asked to accept say, private property, but separateness; not a particular fact of power but the fact that I am a man, therefore of this (range or scale of) capacity to work, for pleasure, for endurance, for appeal, for command, for understanding, for wish, for will, for teaching, for suffering. (Cavell 1989: 44)

Indeed, we find here an anthropological view where human finitude and mutual separateness is put side by side. The latter does not just come from inter-personal quarrels, but also relates to differences in relation to worldviews, natural views etc. for example the attitude one may have towards the contingencies in life, the powers of Nature, or the rise and setting of the sun. Now anticipating my discussion of the early remarks of Frazer, I invoke two quotations from these remarks: It goes without saying that a man’s shadow, which looks like him, or his mirror-image, the rain, thunderstorms, the phases of the moon, the changing seasons, the way in which animals are similar to and different from one another and in relation to man, the phenomena of death, birth, and sexual life, in short, everything we observe around us year in and year out, interconnected in so many different ways, will play a part in his thinking (his philosophy) and in his practices, or is precisely what we really know and find interesting. (PO: 127–128) I don’t mean that just fire must make an impression on everyone. Fire no more than any other phenomenon, and one thing will impress this person and another that. For no phenomenon is in itself particularly mysterious, but any of them can become so to us, and the characteristic feature of the awakening mind of man is precisely the fact that a phenomenon comes to have meaning for him. One could almost say that man is a ceremonial animal. That is no doubt, partly wrong and partly nonsensical, but there is also something right about it. That is, one could begin a book on anthropology by saying: When one examines the life and behavior of mankind throughout the world, one sees that, except for what might be called animal activities, such as ingestion, etc., etc., etc., men also perform actions which bear a characteristic peculiar to themselves, and these could be called ritualistic actions.

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But then it is nonsense for one to go on to say that the characteristic feature of these actions is the fact that they arise from faulty views about the physics of things. (Frazer does this when he says that magic is essentially false physics or, as the case may be, false medicine, technology, etc.) Rather, the characteristic feature of ritualistic action is not at all a view, an opinion, whether true or false, although an opinion – a belief – can itself be ritualistic or part of a rite. (PO: 129)

What will interest me in these quotations is the way certain different themes are interconnected: Wittgenstein mentions a kind of “awakening” of the human mind by referring to “ritualistic” actions which – we will learn – emerge from a previous arena characterized by “instinct actions”. This emergence preserves an understanding of nature and at the same time the criteria involved in the previously given form of life acquires a certain “symbolic” character.1 So within the rites of primitive cultures there is a harmony between nature and culture. That harmony becomes endangered – we will learn – when a more sophisticated culture emerges in which criteria are not only associated with a “symbolism” but with a special kind of symbolism characterized by there being rules for the employment of symbols. One such example is associated with a modern notion of “opinions” which can be justified by claims of rationality (forms of demonstration, evidence, proof, documentation etc.). Now if we forget that this notion of “opinion” should never be dissociated from the way in which Cavell above linked the concept of opinion with there being criteria, then we face a situation “in which the voice of the interlocutors of the Investigations continue on, but in which there is no Wittgensteinian voice as their other” (cf. the quotation from Cavell above). We face a situation similar to that which Wittgenstein faced when he read Frazer’s account of magical rites as expressing errors in respect to the understanding of nature. The argument will be in short: Frazer overlooks something in the way in which modern people, like himself and Wittgenstein, have inherited a culture from their recent ancestors, whereas Frazer’s primitive people by performing magical rites display that they are well aware of crucial elements of the way in which they have inherited a culture from a divine cosmic background. Note that Wittgenstein said that opinions can have a ritual character. So similarly, rule-following activities can have a role within a cultural context if only we are reminded that such activities never can “stand on their own”. We will learn that the following of rules comes with the development of a sophisticated language where certain expressions of rules obtain a kind of canonical employ-

1 “[…] magic is always based on the idea of symbolism and language” (PO: 125).



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ment.2 As such, these employments – we shall learn – belong to a Sprachlehre, to a teaching of language, and thus do not belong to language as such.3 When we forget this, we face the situation similar to that mentioned above. Now the second feature of Cavell’s presentation of Wittgenstein as a philosopher of culture is reading him – together with Emerson, and Kierkegaard – as picturing human beings as being, relative to their given culture, in a kind of “exile”. In this picture, human beings are not “at home” within their given culture. They feel compromised by belonging to the culture, by the fact that the culture is theirs. Here Cavell is right, I think, in reading Wittgenstein as being sensitive to a certain feature of modernity, namely its endeavour to try to overcome a kind of scepticism. There is in modernity an attempt to seek clarity, certainty, explanations, and demonstrations which, when seen rightly, answers to a sophisticated version of the tragic figure of Macbeth: We seek evidence that can never testify to what it is supposed to and where the very act of accepting the evidence as conclusive expresses a major misunderstanding of certain subject matter. Wittgenstein would later say, that “the hardest thing is rightly to express not knowing” (MS 137: 71b), and that is the difficulty which the heroic but illusory attempt to escape scepticism avoids. Our lives do not unfold in the clear light of certainty, demonstrations and rational justifications. We have to live with the non-clarity associated with vagueness, indeterminateness, and openness. And this “fate” should not be seen as a lack. So the heroic denial of scepticism expresses an illusory understanding of the intellect. It expresses the fantasy to speak outside any language game and not being conditioned and constrained by real life experiences and affairs. This is also how I read a passage in the early remarks on Frazer: One could say “every view has its charm”, but that would be false. The correct thing to say is that every view is significant for the one who sees it as significant (but that does not mean, sees it other than it is). Indeed, in this sense, every view is equally significant. It is indeed important that I must also make my own the contempt that anyone else may have for me, as an essential part of the world as seen by me. (PO: 135)

A heroic overcoming of scepticism includes in principle the overcoming of the way in which persons relate to one another. In contrast, Wittgenstein says that if other people regard my person or my doings with disgust, I should take that

2 “Die Grammatik zeigt wie die Zeichen verwendet werden“ (MS 110: 135). See also MS 110: 81; MS 110: 274. 3 The notion appears in MS 110: 221 and MS 110: 272. It plays a bigger role in The Big Typescript (TS 213) than in TS 212 from where the early remarks on Frazer in PO are reprinted.

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in and engage in some kind of transformation of myself, which does not imply that I thereby develop such that I get “closer” to any one particular other person. It is more that my self-understanding becomes more qualified in relation to my separateness and finitude, to the effect that my transformed understanding more adequately expresses the way in which my life unfolds in my culture. The third feature of Cavell’s characterization of Wittgenstein as a philosopher of culture concerns Cavell’s notion of “everydayness”: “[…] in the culture it [PI] depicts, nothing is happening all at once, there is no single narrative for it to tell. What is of philosophical importance or interest – what there is for philosophy to say – is happening repeatedly, unmelodramatically, uneventful.” (Cavell 1989: 75) The main point here is that there is a range of encounters between human beings that are both of upmost importance for their future lives and still are played out “uneventfully, undramatically”. Even dramatic shifts within human relationships – where the separateness of friends and lovers shifts from being part of the background of caring for the others to being part of an abyss where no bridging across the gap seems possible (say for political or religious reasons) – do not express a historic shift of the meaning of words like justice, love, friendship, humanity etc. The point is not that nothing can happen to you and me that matters on a larger scale. On the contrary, the point is that these everyday experiences are what makes the “ongoing conversation” about objectivity, reason, justice, love, friendship, humanity etc., significant. The historical assessment of such grand issues is but a supplement to a conversation that already unfolds in the light of certain criteria that govern our lives as human beings. When we put together the three perspectives of culture we have mentioned, then we get a platform from which to assess the way in which different cultures each can be seen as “housing” variations of the human form of life. Consequently we have found a framework for viewing the ways in which, within a certain culture, the human form of life, a form of life governed by criteria, can develop so as to be troubled or “falling into illusions”.4 Accordingly the kinds of questions we can raise are broader (and deeper) than if we merely tried to make cross cultural investigations, including the comparison between western (scientific, modern) forms of culture vs. more “primitive” cultures. We hereby move beyond a simple hermeneutics.

4 Without postulating that any culture originally was harmonic by contrast to all the actual forms of “paradise lost”!



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2 A  ssessing Variations within the Human Form of Life I mention the issue of cross cultural understanding because I believe that in a certain sense it is off target in relation to the early remarks on Frazer. On the other hand, I also believe that the remarks do not express a kind of general anthropology according to which looking across the “borders” of cultures is irrelevant (since we are dealing with human beings anyway). So to open up a new road, I think that it is important to note that Wittgenstein’s critical remarks on Frazer do not just relate to the view that Frazer (as presented by Wittgenstein) looks at magic as a kind of mistaken proto-science. I think that Wittgenstein also was critical of the view, which Frazer like so many of his times adhered to, that the main task of the sciences is to provide explanations of occurring phenomena. He writes: “Frazer is much more savage than most of his savages, for they are not as far removed from the understanding of a spiritual matter as a twentieth-century Englishman. His explanations of primitive practices are much cruder than the meaning of these practices themselves.” (PO: 131) It can indeed happen, and often does today, that a person will give up a practice after he has recognized an error on which it was based. But this happens only when calling someone’s attention to his error is enough to turn him from his way of behaving. But this is not the case with the religious practices of a people, and therefore there is no question of an error. (PO: 121)

Here it is obvious that Frazer does not see how a life infused with scientific considerations can still be a religious or spiritual life. The sciences have their place in such a life, but this place is not merely given through the invocation of “explanations”. Explanations are instruments, for example when we point out certain kinds of error in relation to the identification, classification, or occurrence of things. If, like Frazer, you turn the formal link between scientific method and the aim of giving explanations into the substance of the sciences, then confusingly you regard the means of science as being its end. Then you also lose sight of the everydayness of the sciences. If further, this confusion leads to a criterion for a demarcation between the sciences and the non-sciences, then a situation arises where sound human understanding is brought to a kind of exile. I think that Wittgenstein (in 1931) regarded science as one of the extensions or supplements to a more simple “word language”, to the effect that the important issue is how the emergence of the various sciences help, guide, or engender

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human practices.5 The sciences are part of the weaves of life; they are not like external viewpoints from whence to deliver a special kind of message. The point in saying this is to underscore the opposite view on the sciences in the sense that they add to the variation in and between human lives. The sciences cannot and should not, as such, try to bring us all to a certain set of “objective” stances. Now the main point here is that this (set of) view(s) of the modern sciences neither imply ethnocentrism nor universalism. So when we acknowledge that Wittgenstein reads the descriptions of the primitive people portrayed by Frazer as if they displayed features of human lives with which we have an immediate understanding, we should thereby also recognize two things: first the world of Wittgenstein anno 1931 is very different from that portrayed by Frazer, and second when Wittgenstein believes that he somehow understands the practices and expressions of the primitive people, he is not thereby pointing to a set of common features between the two very different cultures. Again: For me, the general drift of the early remarks on Frazer concerns what is at issue in “the awakening of the human spirit”. Magic, rituals, and ceremonies are seen as ways in which to “cope” with a culture undergoing transformation. The primitive people have managed to establish a meaningful culture that differs, but not differs fully, from the lives of their ancestors. Well, so have “we”. In that sense we can meet on common ground.6 It is a matter of a culture in transformation being able to face another culture in transformation. Nothing in our lives is confirmed by being able to make sense of, say, the murder of the priest-King. That ritual expresses a concern, a trouble among the primitive people, and it speaks to us who have our concerns and troubles. The reported incident disturbs us. We cannot see it as just a historical report about a remote past. It is important that what might have happened among people in such a remote past can speak to us today; but what is spoken is relative to contingent familiarities between two different cultural formations; which is not denying that the understanding of events of the remote past may be very deep and important in relation to our contemporary understanding of human lives. So my claim is: The significance of the Frazer remarks is not downplayed when we underscore the features of contingency and relativity in relation to cross cultural understanding. It is precisely not two “normative frameworks” that

5 This will be unfolded below! 6 Note that here there is no claim concerning a universal historical development. The transformation of the two cultures is two transformations “facing” each other, not two succeeding transformations.



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meet, but two living diversities, not two ideologies or Weltanschauungen, but two different “cultural situations”. Wittgenstein writes: When I am furious about something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my stick. But I certainly do not believe that ground is to blame or that the beating helps anything. “I am venting my anger.” All rites are of this kind. Such actions may be called Instinct-actions. […] The similarity of the action to an act of punishment is important, but nothing more than this similarity can be asserted. Once such a phenomenon is brought into connection with an instinct which I myself possess, this is precisely the explanation wished for; that is, the explanation which resolves this particular difficulty. And a further investigation about the history of my instinct moves on another track. (PO: 138–139)

Here two situations are facing each other. The situation of Wittgenstein who knows how frustration can involve hitting the ground with one’s stick. This act brings some relief, and is an act of instinct. The act symbolizes a punishment. Now the other situation is that of the “savage”: Burning in effigy. [Wittgenstein questions Frazer] [For Wittgenstein’s situation is:] Kissing the picture of one’s beloved. That is obviously not based on the belief that it will have some specific effect on the object which the picture represents. It aims at satisfaction and achieves it. Or rather: it aims at nothing at all; we just behave in that way and then we feel satisfied. […] The same savage, who stabs the picture of his enemy apparently in order to kill him, really builds his hut out of wood and carves his arrow skillfully, and not in effigy. (PO: 123– 124)

The savage stabs the picture of his enemy. This instinctive act symbolizes a killing and comes with a sense of willing what is symbolized. Contrary to Frazer, Wittgenstein understands this. But this does not imply that the two kinds of situation, those of Wittgenstein and those of the savage in any way have been shown to be similar situations. They may be said to have similar structural elements, but saying that will be part of a kind of commentary, not part of the sayings that belong to the situations. So I find the following quotation very telling: “Here one can only describe and say: this is what human life is like.” (PO: 121) I read this as expressing two things: When trying to make sense of the situation in which a person living within another culture finds himself, one must always invoke a set of reminders to the effect that in a sense we see the situation as through a net, or in relation to a kind of coordinate system, that is spun by a large group of reminders, say about death, food, sex, shelter, eternity, friends, tools, clothes, houses, wagons, weapons etc. In that sense we “describe” the situation of others (we see the situation as an element in the weave of life as Wittgenstein

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would later formulate it (in MS 137: 118b; MS 138: 19b) and we see the situation as containing expressions-of-life (MS 137: 22a)).7 But now note that this description leads to us saying, here today, “this is what human life is like”. The description makes sense. It describes the situation of the savage (of the other culture) as belonging to “the drama of life” (MS 137: 80a; MS 137: 120a). But the drama is not our drama. We are facing the situation of the savage, but we are not involved in the situation, however much we may take an interest in it. Wittgenstein writes: There are dangers connected with eating and drinking, not only for the savages, but also for us; nothing is more natural than the desire to protect oneself from these; and now we could devise preventive measures ourselves. – But according to what principle are we to invent them? Obviously, according to the one by which all dangers are reduced to the form of a few very simple ones which are immediately evident to man […] (PO:127)

Today we have concerns about diseases, and we are tempted to picture the spread of diseases in a simple way. Wittgenstein mentions the idea that diseases spread within the body like a flow of heat. The savage may have other simple ideas about the magical powers associated with eating and drinking. Maybe, I eat the soul of my ancestors when I engage in some ritual? We think of food in terms of nutrition, calories, vitamins, texture, taste as if we have a clear coordinate system in which to order and rank various food products; the savage may have quite different connotations to what (s)he eats. Again what is in focus is a field of variations; it is not the discovery of universal traits of the human form of life. Some large set of general reminders about basic features of our human being will be significant when we try to make sense of scenarios within a culture different from our own, but there is no such given and fixed set of general features. Consequently, we now see one reason why Wittgenstein would make the following remark about the fundamental importance of the “concept of perspicuous representation”: “The concept of perspicuous representation is of fundamental importance for us. It denotes the form of our representation, the way we see things. (A kind of ‘World-view’ as it is apparently typical of our time. Spengler).” (PO: 133) The reference to Spengler will be explained below. Here we shall note rather how the concept of a perspicuous representation is associated with an ability to be

7 I have on several occasions suggested that MS 137 & MS 138 should be fully published in book form. Why the first part (1–76a) of MS 137 is not included in PPO is not only strange, it is to me highly confusing in that a set of interrelated themes are presented in that first part. I have also on these occasions suggested that MS 137–138 together should be published as Wittgenstein’s Irish Writings: The Grammar of Pretence.



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able to see variations. In a later section, I illustrate that association by describing the role of mathematical thought in Wittgenstein in, and after, the TLP. The ability to see variations involves, as we shall see, an ability to perform operations. This is an ability to go “crisscross” among a certain group of possible constellations or combinations.8 This ability is at stake both when we become aware of possible variations within our own culture and variations within the understanding of other cultures. For example, we link food and health, they seem to link food and magic, so food is a connecting link between our obsession with health and their obsession with magic. Wittgenstein here warns against understanding such links in a historical sense. It yields nothing to regard the variations (of possible situations) we seem to find in the culture of the others as early versions of variations (of possible situations) we have today in our culture. So history as a temporal link brings nothing, only the historical given, which – for us and for the savages  – exemplify a “mythology”; exemplify a way in which an originally given and rich culture, where gestures were highly developed, has been transformed into different later cultures, that of the savage and that of ours. Wittgenstein writes: The perspicuous representation brings about the understanding which consists precisely in the fact that we “see the connections”. Hence the importance of connecting links […] nothing shows our kinship to those savages better than the fact that Frazer has on hand a word as familiar to himself and us as “ghost” in order to describe the views of these people. […] Indeed, this peculiarity relates not only to the expressions “ghost” and “shade”, and much too little is made of the fact that we count the words “soul” and “spirit” as part of our educated vocabulary. Compared with this, the fact that we do not believe that our soul eats or drinks is a trifling matter. An entirely mythology is stored within our language. (PO: 133)

3 F rom Language as an Exposition of Human Lives to Questioning a Life with Words Thus far I have tried to show how the three aspects of culture (home, everydayness, and nature as cultivated) leads to a comparative view where two cultures-in-transformation can be compared by seeing connections that consist in recognizing a common (emotional, instinctive) background from where the two

8 Below I qualify this remark and talk about operating on constellations of already given operations!

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cultures in different ways have evolved, and where no historical relation between the two evolutions is claimed. I will now give a brief account of some major aspects (I think) of Wittgenstein’s TLP. This is because I believe that Wittgenstein’s interest in the idea of a perspicuous representation, in its association with certain ideas about “grammar”, “complex” and others, grew out of a struggle also about how to modify or extend some of the ideas within the TLP, such as “logical space”, “logical syntax”, and “model”. And I believe that an understanding of certain elements within the shift from the views of the TLP to those of the later Wittgenstein (anno 1931) is of help in an assessment of the remarks on Frazer.9 When Wittgenstein wrote MS 110 in 1931, where we find the first articulations of the remarks on Frazer, he could no longer be characterized as the author of the TLP. However, the Fragestellungen that were on his table when writing MS  110 were not totally detached from those that make up the themes of the TLP. Let me explain how I see this: First I think it is a quite straightforward statement to make that the TLP is divided up into certain sections, call them – just for sake of identifying them, not in order to interpret them – the metaphysical, semantic, mathematical, scientific, and ethical sections. I shall say only one thing about the first section, namely what is expressed in the very first line “The world is all that is the case” (TLP 1). Here we find a notion concerning what Wittgenstein later – in his lecture on ethics – would call a “flat” universe. Whatever is the case, it is part of “all that is the case” representing one of the ways in which “the world divides [zerfällt] into facts” (TLP 1.2). In the semantic part we find an account of the way in which the signs that expresses “sentences”, the sentential signs, must have a certain logical structure. We find an account of how a group of sentential signs answers to a logical space and that every sentential sign “like an arrow” points to one and just one element within the logical space. We find the view that what should properly be called “sentences” are employments of the sentential signs – in the sense of a mathematical function of the signs.10 The fact to which a sentential sign is employed is called the “meaning” of that sign (TLP 4.022) and we are told that “[…] a proposition [sentence] is true if we use it to say that things stand in a certain way, and they do” (TLP 4.062). These statements are not, I think, an expression of “semantics” in that the statements are not spoken from a metaphysically detached point of view where “the truth of sentences” is associated with

9 The same goes for the other way round: The remarks on Frazer can elucidate something at stake in the transformation or development of Wittgenstein’s views. 10 I refrain from using the translation “proposition” which is used in the Pears/McGuinness translation (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974)



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“the meaning of sentences”.11 So it would be misleading to make a general claim in relation to a reading of the TLP, saying that the sense of a sentence is determined by its truth conditions. Wittgenstein’s statements in the semantic part of the TLP are, I think, spoken from “within” the attempt to construct a terminology and are part of a procedure where one knows what to do.12 The only “implication” of the association of sentential signs with specific points in a logical space and thus with specific possible facts is a logical implication to the effect that given such a group of sentential signs, we can then perform truth operations on them. The logical space is like a logical base for a set of logical operations. So the extensionalist thesis, is as I see it merely an expression of a method of logic by means of which we can generate new sentential signs in a certain logical way, and then – Wittgenstein shows in the TLP – we can reveal a certain form within the series of constructed sentential signs; and this form – called the general form of a sentence – is subsequently associated with a logical construction of the series of natural numbers.13 Now this is not an essay on the philosophy of mathematics. So the point we shall use is only that the sentential signs of the TLP can be applied to reality. The “use” of the elementary sentential sign, when pointing to a possible fact, is a kind of employment that must somehow be “realized”. It must be pulled through. That is the pictorial character of the employment thanks to which we can be said to model the world. But models are constructed in order to be applied: So by saying that “the totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science (or the whole corpus of the natural sciences)” (TLP 4.11) Wittgenstein associates the pictorial character of sentential signs with the possibility of making models within the natural sciences. I thus conjecture that the author of the TLP took for granted that by applying mathematical constructions to a set of possible facts one had achieved a kind of “modelling” of the world (say in the sense of Hertz or Boltzmann). Since this is

11 My paper (Brock 1986) has been widely read in the Nordic countries. I stick to what is said in that paper. What I then called a “picture theory of sentential meaning” is not a meaning-theory in a semantic sense, but is an expression of the logical syntax upon which truth-operations can “work”. See below. 12 As to the dispute between on the one hand Cora Diamond (2005) and James Conant and on the other P. M. S. Hacker (2003) concerning the notion of logical syntax in the TLP I side with the former. According to the TLP you cannot use a sign without following a method of logic. Also, logical syntax is not giving rules for combinations of elementary signs, but is an expression of the existence of such in so far as they mark different places in the logical space. In that sense any sign, but also the sentential signs, are “symbols” (TLP 3.32, 3.321). 13 For details, not of my account but of features in my account, see Floyd 2004: 242ff.

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not an essay on the philosophy of physics, I can be brief: Modelling in the sense of Hertz and Boltzmann differs from the way in which a single sentential sign is a kind of model or picture of reality: With mathematics comes the possibility of modelling certain measures of things, not just their very occurrence. My point here is only that the author of the TLP conceived of mathematics as a method (of logic) through which one can supply sentential signs with a “natural” meaning. In practice, in physics, this is called constructing a “phase-space” which expresses all the possible states (conditions) of a certain physical system. To elaborate a phasespace is to define a set of possible states as making up a “physical system”.14 The flat universe of the logical space is, by means of mathematics, elevated to a landscape of different “mountains” or “structures” or “measures” that might be experienced in the real world.15 In the natural sciences we can describe, by modelling measures, what might possibly happen. That is not, and should not, be our task in ethics (aesthetics, and religion). When Wittgenstein claims (in TLP 6.522) that something “makes itself manifest” by what cannot be said; he does not mean that there is a realm of “things” that cannot be said. It is rather that trying to say certain things, like “God is Great”, shall be understood as not really saying anything, it shall not be seen as an expression of a thought, but as an expression of, say, certain attitudes or wishes in life. I suggest that the TLP shows that it is human life that is mystical; the life where some are religious and others claim to be ethical, or have aesthetic sense. Such diversities within our lives cannot be described. I select some quotations from the TLP that lead me to this reading of it: (5.6)

The limits of my language means the limits of my world

(5.621) The world and life are one (5.63)

I am my world (The microcosmos)

14 A reading of the sections of the TLP (6.32–6.35) should bear in mind how, as has been shown by both H. Helmholtz and M. Planck, all of physics can be derived from the so called “Principle of least action”. The TLP takes that principle as did Helmholtz, as a mathemathical principle that a priori defines the possibility of physical theory; see Brock 2003a: 58–66. A student of Wittgenstein who became a distinguished professor in physics, wrote a whole book on the relation between physical theory and models as linguistic constructions (Watson 1938). Cassirer (1980) should be regarded as the canonical book on the subject. 15 Consequently, the later Wittgenstein thought that such a view of the natural sciences was lacking a certain depth, however big the “mountains” erected seem. This is the critique of an illusory understanding of the sciences which we have already discussed above.



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(5.632) The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world (6.43) […] The world of the happy man is different from that of the unhappy man.

Finally I select the following paragraphs that form one important section of the TLP (6.52–6.522). I shall allow myself to write them down as a single body of text: We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer. The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what constituted that sense?). There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

In reading these paragraphs one should, notice their character as elucidations, as the ladder which the reader shall throw away when she has understood, not the text, but understood Wittgenstein. It is true that Wittgenstein says that this lucky reader will then also come to notice the non-sensical character of Wittgenstein’s philosophical statements in the TLP (6.54). But the important thing is the very possibility of understanding another person, here Wittgenstein, such that the person who has been awoken by Wittgenstein, gets the message which is the final and ultimate statement (guideline) of the book: “(7) What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” This message is almost like that of a parable of the New Testament: Now go and do likewise! One finds here a kind of philosophy of life, a portrait of a scientifically informed living being, who shall learn to keep things apart. Do science (work) in the morning; deal with problems of life in the evening. In the former scenario you establish a world in which to unfold your linguistically mediated endeavours, in the latter scenario you find your feet in that world, become at one with it, to the effect that you live and act in peace with your “fate”, which is that the world never corresponds to your will (TLP 6.373–6.374). In that sense, what we might value, lies “outside of the world” (TLP 6.41), and the “ethical” is “transcendental” (TLP 6.421). I recognize both that this account of the structure of the TLP can be questioned in many ways and that the characterization is somewhat crude. However, my agenda here is simply to give the best account I can give, of the sense in which the TLP can be said to deal with a constellation of Fragestellungen. For I believe

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that the early remarks on Frazer in a certain sense form part of a struggle to both overcome and “transform” those very Fragestellungen.16 Take this constellation (in Wittgenstein’s sense of the terms): Metaphysics, logic, sentence, truth operation, mathematics, natural science, non-sense shown, ethical, mystical, human life. What would an author of a book like the TLP do if he discovered that, say the ethical is already in the metaphysical – and not just in the spiritual because the use of words as such has ethical significance – that the mathematical is already in the individual sentences – as stated in the paper “Some Remarks on Logical Form” (Wittgenstein 1929), that natural science is not modelling the world in terms of measures but (as was the lesson from both relativity theory and quantum mechanics) in terms of possible forms of symbolic observations (MS 110: 128)? Well one possible answer to this question is this: In the TLP the focus was on how people can express themselves. Such expression is seen as both being in accordance with a language modelling reality and at the same time as running against the borders of this language. The very use of language is thus in the TLP seen as making features of human lives manifest. As the paragraphs of the Kringel-Buch clearly show Wittgenstein developed from late 1930 till late 1931 an interest in a new issue; namely what it might mean for there to be “a life with a language”.17 Human life is not something that shows itself in the use of a well ordered language. Human life is a special life where using a language plays certain roles, has certain functions, leads to certain problems, or makes us laugh, cry, and fight. Here one might mention that Wittgenstein’s “Lecture on Ethics” was delivered sometime between 1929–30 and that one of the issues of that lecture was elucidated later in conversations with M. Schlick and F. Waismann, dated 29 December 1929 and 17 December 1930: Wittgenstein talks in the lecture about the tendency in human beings to wonder what comes out when we try to express ethical and religious concerns in words. In the lecture Wittgenstein said that

16 Indeed I think that the usual manner of dividing Wittgenstein’s writings into specific phases, for instance distinguishing as does Marion (1999) and Monk (1990) between the period of TLP, a verificationist period, a phenomenological period and finally a mature position is in many ways misleading. In MS 110 Wittgenstein makes the remark “we must plough through the whole language” (PO: 131) so it is not true as Floyd (2004: 260) says that it was first in 1934 that stuff like tables and images become part of the tool box of language. Against Monk (1990) it is not true that the view presented in Waismann (1930) is verificationist. I thus think that the notion of a Fragestellung much better captures what was “going on” in Wittgenstein’s writings in the “transitory years”. 17 Cf. KB: 78 = MS 109: 212ff.



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he had reverence for that tendency. In the first conversation with Schlick and Waismann he says that the tendency “points to something”, and in the second conversation he says that in a sense he just speaks about himself – maybe both as the author of the TLP and as the person Wittgenstein – as having and feeling this tendency. The latter conversation also includes an important remark to the effect that the ethical cannot be taught. So we find here remarks concerning the importance of what cannot be taught, like the understanding of certain works of Beethoven. I see a link here between a set of issues which, we shall learn, are central in the MS 110, within which we find the first articulations of the remarks on Frazer. I thus claim that such a shift of philosophical framework emerged in Wittgenstein’s writing as early as 1931 and did so because he was still trying to come to terms with the Fragestellungen of the TLP. The remarks on Frazer appear in MS 110 within a series of questions concerning the complex relationships between logic, metaphysics, language, mathematics, science, and ethics (in Wittgenstein’s sense of these terms). As such they express an endeavour to give some remarks on what it might mean to “live a life with words” instead of regarding the use of words as being directly an exposition of features of human lives.18

4 F rom Elementary Syntactical Sentences to Statements That Are Based on Rules of Logical Syntax The paper “Some Remarks on Logical Form”, which was published in Aristotelian Supplement in 1929, deals with the issue of in what sense elementary sentences allow for an account of degrees. Can the two sentences “the mat is dark green” and “the mat is light green” stand in some clear logical relation to one another in the sense that they both are seen as a truth function of elementary sentences? Does the one contradict the other? Wittgenstein argues that they do not. However, they can be said to exclude one another, and this kind of exclusion has to do with a certain way in which the statements imply a reference to the application of numbers. The talk of degrees of, say, colours involves associating

18 Even if this is indeed true, I am not claiming that MS 110 was written as one continuous work, although I will claim that there is a limit to the sense in which one can regard MS 110 as fragmented.

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colours with some kind of scale. The digital principle, the binominal scale of yes vs. no, has been substituted by an ordinal scale which – and that is the point and the problem – do not arise from truth functions of elementary sentences. Wittgenstein does not discuss this problem but hints at what a solution to it might include; namely that we formulate rules which in some sense are adequate in relation to “an analysis of phenomena that are striking” (my translation into English). This hint of Wittgenstein marks the first step towards the idea which we find in the Frazer remarks, of the importance of a “perspicuous representation”. What is more: Wittgenstein’s view on mathematics as a method of logic took a new form.19 The very possibility of mathematics is now relative to the possibility of formulating determinations which are based on rules. The logical syntax of the TLP – which was seen as sort of unfolding itself within the truth operations – has now been substituted by certain rules of logical syntax. And these rules do not just answer to the binominal scale of truth tables; other kinds of scales may arise through the unfolding of a rule governed logical syntax. When this development in Wittgenstein’s thoughts occurred, he still thought of the outcome of a logically regimented use of sentential signs as forming a science. We know from the “Lecture on Ethics” that he still divided statements up between scientific statements and statements that are strictly speaking without sense but which in a certain way display the aspirations or anxieties of people. He still thought that clear descriptions were the noble mark of the sciences and that any other form of expression was non-descriptive. It should be noted that in MS 110 and even more in the successive TS 211, Wittgenstein was very anxious to underscore that the use of language in both the descriptive and the expressive sense was non-psychological. Maybe this was because he had not yet come to realize the possibility of giving a non-mental account of “psychology” and so was anxious to exclude a mentalistic account of language. I think this comes out in the way in which Wittgenstein in MS 110 and TS 211 moves back and forth in relation to the idea that the meaningfulness of sentences is somehow related to certain ways in which they can be “verified”. Verification conditions – whatever these can be – are not conditions of some kind of fulfilment of consciousness. One cannot experience that a sentence has the meaning it has. Another thing that has not changed in these early manuscripts is the importance of the question in what sense a sentence can be meaningful in a logical way. True Wittgenstein begins to talk about grammar instead of just logic. I conjecture

19 See Marion (1999: 150ff.). My talk of “scales” is more in line with the account of Floyd (2004: 254ff.) where the uniform account of numbers (as exponents of an operation) in the TLP is substituted by a more “open” view on finite cardinality.



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that “grammar” takes the place of mathematics, in that it is no longer clear in what sense mathematics is but a “method of logic”; so thus we need a new kind of “operation” that can be said to be such a method. The Wittgenstein of MS 110 sees grammar as a series of operations on the possible uses of words. I think that if one goes into detail, one will find that – gradually – Wittgenstein developed a view to the effect that (1) the bulk material of a language is an open set of possible uses of words (Ge­brauch in German), (2) these uses (Gebräuche) are in some sense answerable to rules for the employment of words (Verwendung in German) (1) points to the use of language as such; and (2) points to a Sprach-Lehre and where this Language-Teaching does not determine or constitute the use of language (MS 110: 221, 272).20 The teaching at level (2) is in a certain sense needed (unavoidable), and helpful. But just as the teaching of language is a natural and helpful thing it has its dangers and can even be misused in a series of “deliberate ways”. A consequence of this is, I conjecture, that Wittgenstein realized that what he had been doing in the TLP was part of the teaching of language, and was not – as he previously had thought – an account of how to establish a logical framework for the regimentation of ordinary language. Let me underscore that Wittgenstein’s new considerations were still connected to the basic problem of understanding sentential meaning. The rules of logical syntax, the grammar, are not directly to be seen as expressions of a form of life, of a culture, of a People with certain values and interests. In these manuscripts, Wittgenstein is on the verge of asking himself how there being – and there having to be – a Sprachlehre (which, as it were, accompanies the unfolding of language) displays something crucial about our lives with words. But before gradually reaching that question, Wittgenstein first had to come to terms with the possible “achievements” of a Sprachlehre. One major insight in this respect in MS 110 is the view that gesture language cannot be taught (MS 110: 121) and so in a certain way such a language (or feature of language) cannot be “overcome” by a more rule governed use of language. Consequently, science is no longer over and above the sphere where gesture language makes sense, it is more like a refine-

20 The suggestions that Wittgenstein soon gave up that idea as part of his dismissal of the idea of some kind of meta-mathematics is to me confused in many ways. I want to say: If you dismiss the idea of language-teaching as an important feature of language, you dismiss all of Wittgenstein after 1931.

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ment of the daily language than a substitution or perfection of it. “Word language grows out of gesture language”, Wittgenstein says (MS 110: 153). But science has now become superior to metaphysics in a way in which it was not in the TLP. There the metaphysical “flat” order of a logical space grounded the possibility of science. Now science is seen as a being at one with the Sprachlehre such that one – after having reached that stance, after being in the clear about the grammar – can lead “words back to their right employment” (MS 110: 34). This is the idea of going from “metaphysics” to the ordinary language, by taking a certain use of words out of the “hiding shadows of MP” (MS 110: 194). An example of such leading words back would be as presented in the “Lecture on Ethics”: If ethical statements are seen by someone as normative in an absolute sense, then we remind that person that evaluations presuppose a relative framework of possible forms of comparison. Thus the field of such comparisons expresses a limit which shows that the absolute normative view is nonsensical. Therefore, the denial of the absolute claim in a certain sense places the claim within a factual, objective sphere which may not – as such – express an ordinary use of language but rather a possible way to extend that language. May that not be seen as a way to recapture the extraordinary use of certain words; not by turning them directly into ordinary uses but into employments of the words that supplement an already given use, in short; by removing the hidden shadows of metaphysics surrounding the absolute normative claim to the effect that this claim now shows itself as a possible move within the teaching of possible extensions of ordinary language, and not as belonging “originally” to that language? And can we not say the same about the critique of Frazer’s view on magical rites? Here the issue is not that a normative claim appears as a kind of “meta”-description of a “value”, but rather that Frazer is said to have had a meta-conception of the sciences, such that even magical rites and ceremonies must in principle be associated with a scientific task (say, explaining things). Here the possibility of extending ordinary language is turned into a necessary extension. Removing the hidden shadows of metaphysics thus, in this case, means revealing how the quest for decisive scientific explanations breaks off the intelligible relation to the given ceremonies instead of illuminating them and supporting them.

5 A  Melting Pot: MS 110 and Two General Themes Surrounding the Frazer Remarks The early remarks on Frazer, which were published by Rush Rhees, were extracted from TS 211. This typescript is concerned first of all with the idea of language as a



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calculus and with various considerations that emerge when one realizes that the understanding of sentences does not answer to certain experiences (of verifiability conditions). So Wittgenstein presses his non-psychological approach by pointing to some features of the use of language that appear to be intentional, such as being able to follow instructions and orders (like “fetch me a red rose from the bushes”). Instead of looking at mental states corresponding to the intentions involved in giving and following orders, the practice of searching for something is scrutinized. It is as a part of this scrutiny that questions concerning the role of ostensive definitions are formulated. I think that several ideas were crystallized in Wittgenstein’s thinking as he composed MS 110. One idea is that one must distinguish sharply between, on the one hand, giving an example of a meaningful use of a sentence (like when we say, “in English you can certainly say that ‘water is clear’”), and on the other to describe a use (Gebrauch) (like when we say that “the word ‘clear’ can be used both for water, windows, and thoughts”) Another idea that is crystallized is the idea of there being expressions of rules (MS 110: 81, 93; TS 211: 146, 183, 190). These expressions are part of the Sprachlehre. As such there are rules for the employment (Verwendung) of those expressions. There is a complex dialectic here between what I have called elsewhere “the three dimensions of meaning as use”, which – I think – Wittgenstein was to scrutinize for more than 12 years.21 For the same event (Peter said “water is clear”) is both an immediate encounter between Peter and his addressees and an immediate case of Peter “making sense” to his addressees. It is like when you score a goal in a game of football; you did it, and you did it in that you hit the ball such that it hits the net behind the goal. Here we can both talk “directly” about what happened (I scored a goal) and that my scoring counts because I played according to the rules. Here the cow, here the money, as Wittgenstein says (MS 110: 231). And I take it that the point of a non-psychological account of the use of symbols is that the immediate event (scoring) is not merely seen within a causal order, or within an order of occurring events, but is seen as a move in a kind of game. Indeed, the idea of language games emerges in TS 211: 594 and Wittgenstein had all along compared uses of words with various games like chess and tennis. A move in a game – in the most straightforward sense (that of “use”) – is already a move that either counts or not. In the description of moves, say “it was a goal” we point to a set of rules for how to play the game at issue. But these descriptions belong to the Sprachlehre and are not themselves legitimate moves in the game. Finally, the employment of the expressions of rules can be said to be applied (angewendet),

21 See Brock 2003b. I will discuss this issue further below.

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and that is how elements of the Sprachlehre enters back into the unfolding of language as such I think that we find here a very crucial “take” involved in Wittgenstein’s philosophizing about language (as a kind of calculus). Often when we think we exemplify uses (moves), we are in fact mentioning how such uses (moves) “count” in the game, and the two most important such mistakes in the description of a language concerns the idea that we can name something and the idea that we can describe something. I want to underscore this view which I contribute to Wittgenstein in MS 110 and TS 211: The naming and describing of things involve very refined uses of a complex of things. Think of it like this: A little child must be able to do a lot of things with its language before it can begin to name and to describe things. A little child speaks and acts while playing with a ball. When the child says “that is the ball” it means the ball belonging to the play. Now, a certain ball may belong to many games, such that the child may say “this is my ball and not my sister’s” (meaning I am playing with it now, not her). But it is a long way before the child can understand an utterance like “that round rubber entity is called a ´ball´” as expressing a certain rule for the use of the term “ball”. When we mention how things are associated with “names” and “descriptions”, we must not – as Cavell put it – take ourselves to be speaking outside of language games. Again, we shall learn to see how naming and describing can be seen as instruments for expanding an already given form within the use of a language. With these reminders let us now take a closer look at MS 110: One of the first remarks in that text says “Beschreiben ist nachbilden” (MS 110: 8). Also we find the remark that one can only “draw” something, if one knows what it means to draw something (MS 110: 45). The very practice of making a “drawing” must somehow be learnt and the acquired skill must answer to certain rules for the “making” of drawings. A child may have learnt that an (almost) round and yellowish spot is a way in which to draw a picture of the sun shining down on a house or a tree. But even this skill comes late in life compared with the ability to move in the daylight, learning not to look directly into the sun, taking shelter from the strong and burning sun, or wearing sunglasses and learning that plants that are not exposed to daylight may die. In PI Wittgenstein says: “[…] Die hinweisende Definition erklärt den Gebrauch – die Bedeutung – des Wortes, wenn es schon klar ist, welche Rolle das Wort in der Sprache überhaupt spielen soll […].” (PI §30) Also in PI §38 Wittgenstein talks about […] eine[] Tendenz […] die Logik unserer Sprache zu sublimieren […] Die eigentliche Antwort darauf ist: “Name” nennen wir sehr verschiedenes; das Wort “Name” characterisiert viele



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verschiedenen Weisen verwandte Arten des Gebrauchs eines Worts – aber unter diesen Arten des Gebrauchs ist nicht die des Wortes “dieses”.

So the ostensive definition is a rule of substitution. The word “this” enters the act of introducing the rule. The word “this” is a feature of the expression of the rule of substitution. As, for instance, when in soccer we declare that “this goal counts double, since it was an away goal”. Here we coin a phrase “an away goal”. The new name is a substitute, not for an entity which we could point out already in some way while saying “this is it”. The new name is a substitute for something given within already functioning language games, and where these games have already been supplemented by various forms of language-teaching. The introduction of the name is more like “putting a poster on a brick”; a brick with which we already know how to make moves in a given language game, and where putting a poster on something is a recognized form of indication. Thereby, we get rid of the (metaphysically idle) idea that an ostensive definition somehow establishes a direct contact between the name and its referent. Instead the brick with the poster can be given a paradigmatic or canonical use in a new game, say “looking for objects with such posters”. So there are, I believe, three different aspects of these issues that must be pointed out as being both different and yet related: a. The first step of the introduction of a rule into a given language: “substitution” equals the fastening of a poster to a brick in a game; b. The second step of the introduction of a rule into a given language: The item on which the poster is fastened may now be considered as a brick in a new language game; c. The third step of the introduction of a rule into a given language: There is a canonical expression of the rule introduced which the very teaching of the rule focusses on and which leads to a “regelhafte Benutzung” of that expression/paradigm/formula/table (MS 110: 50). This is not a method for the introduction of rules. It is the logic of introducing rules, and does not determine that the rule is actually followed in a certain way. The important thing is not the possibility of following rules – as if we looked at rules as rails that are laid out and which determine any further step, seen from a detached metaphysical viewpoint. The important thing is that rules can be expressed such that new games may develop. The important thing is that language supplemented with a teaching of language can develop the language in certain directions. One such direction is physics, if we regard that enterprise as based on a variety of ways in which to construct measuring instruments. Another direction could be a colour-language based on certain tables that function as the expression of rules

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for the use of colour-words like “red” and “blue” in a regimented sense, say when we select painting to be used for painting the walls in our houses. Now, the introduction of rules into language was associated by Wittgenstein with the “awakening of the human spirit (or intellect)”. I think Wittgenstein in MS 110 indicates several phases in this – imaginary, reconstructed – awakening: First there is the “primordial” (childish-animistic) use of expressions (MS 110: 121), then comes a linguistic practice infused by Vorstellungen, a perceptual language emerges (MS 110: 194). Then comes a “word-language” (MS 110: 153), and finally a language in the sense of a calculus involving a system of symbols and rules for their uses is developed. The new “languages” all embody the formerly developed, so we are talking (in imaginary terms) about a continuous development. Recall, this reconstructed ”awakening” is not part of an evolutionary thesis, it is a story we tell when, for instance, we remind ourselves that we are not that different from the savages described by Frazer. We picture as it were our onto-genesis as users of language as if it was also our phylogenesis. We picture the emergence of cultures as an inheritance, and so we again see a link between Cavell’s Wittgenstein and our assessment of the early remarks on Frazer. I conjecture that the primitive languages portrayed by Frazer, to Wittgenstein, answer to a Vorstellungssprache. This is the language of magic and as such the first language to be characterized as a “symbolism”. This kind of language contains principles of order, which is crucial for the sense in which Wittgenstein regards human cultures as characterized by ceremonies and rituals. We have a link between the use of signs associated with certain Anschauungen and magic, ritual, ceremony: this awakening of the human intellect is, Wittgenstein says, associated with “the appearance of choice”. Wittgenstein also says that this awakening of a world of possibilities for choosing, for seeing differences, has “the form of honouring” the highest, the Gods, the basis for everything. In that sense, magic expresses a “depth”. Man reaches for the skies in certain ways and is related to the skies in several ways. This is not the curved world that was erected in the TLP based on the flat universe of the logical space, but is rather – one could say – a horizon of mountains to be heading towards. By contrast to the gesture language and the language of ritual and ceremony, the language of perception is associated with teaching practices. As such there is a grammar of perception that gradually (we imagine) can develop into a grammar of things (MS 110: 243). The “thing language”, I take it, answers to the “word language” and the introduction of names and declarative sentences into the language. It is important to note (and this is the remark preceding the first Frazer remarks) that the purpose of a grammar is the purpose of applying the language already given. The new rules of Verwendung have the purpose of making possible certain Anwendungen of the language such that these Anwendungen have the



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same range of character which previous aims and aspirations in our lives have had. So maybe the language of science can provide us with “explanations”. But the interest in such explanations does not introduce an entirely new “super”-aim into our lives. Grammar extends and unfolds the magical dimensions of our cultural practices in new directions. That is the sense in which Wittgenstein could associate (his own early) metaphysics with magic (MS 110: 177). The flat universe of logic in the TLP led to a uniform set of possible applications – in the natural sciences – of models developed by means of mathematics, by means of truth operations. This idea of uniformity, the idea of a mathematical description of Nature was “primitive” in that it was but a sophisticated form of gesture language. Grammar and gesture was linked and as such the view expresses magic; but the rich world of perception that the primitive people, portrayed by Frazer, had developed, forms a much more multi-directional link between grammar and gesture. So as the grammar of the word- and thing language is erected on top of the language of perception, what is thus becoming intertwined, (like perceptions, things, words, rules, …) includes the whole sphere of our lives with feelings and emotions. Cavell said that Wittgenstein should be read as dealing with forms of life more than forms of life. If we now see the development of new patterns of feelings and emotions as a transformation of a human life it makes sense to associate the (imaginary) development of language as pointing back to “earlier” times where the expressions (sign, symbols, rituals, ceremonies, ..) – which at that “time” expressed human lives – were different. The humanity (in the sense of emotionality) of our lives comes out differently. Here in our reconstruction of MS 110 we have again reached a point where the link between the notion of “grammar” and the notion of a “perspicuous representation” can be underscored, and where we can learn, that the point of underscoring this link is to be able to say something about the emotionality of human beings; to say something that goes criss-cross both within and between different cultures: In MS 110 Wittgenstein repeatedly comes back to an issue he calls “complex and fact” (see especially MS 110: 249ff.). I take the point to be that mention of individual facts makes no sense in abstraction from systems of possible “indications” of a number of facts. The single case is a case by contrast to other cases (MS 110: 294), but these “systems of contrast” are not uniform. If you call them different logical spaces in the sense of TLP you make a mistake because they do not all, as a totality or conjunction, make up the (ultimate) logical space. The different systems of contrast are only mediated in the sense that the practices – belonging to the Sprachlehre – of “indicating” possible “places” within the systems have affinities.

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There is for instance a family of practice where you draw ellipses which, as the procedures unfold, more and more have the shape of a circle. Now say that some such series of ellipses are all drawn with a blue pen, except for a figure which is drawn with a red pen such that this figure can be seen as the very circle that the series of ellipses in a sense “comes nearer”. The series of different ellipses make up a perspicuous presentation, because (as one knows from mathematics) any two ellipses can be compared with an intermediate case which we always can add to the series if we wish. But the fact that the circle is drawn in red is not a symbol belonging to the mode of presentation, it is rather a somewhat conventional sign that expresses there being such a presentation at all. The red colour of the circle symbolizes the complex. It is a symbol that expresses a kind of licence ticket for possible applications of the system of presentation of ellipses. It is like calling the axes of a two dimensional coordinating system “x axis” and “y axis”. You do not first have the two axes and then you add the possible displacements of curves within that “system”. The system is the set of possible displacements and the axes are outcomes of the presentation of the displacements. But by pointing out the fact of there being a system of displacements by means of drawing the axis (say, for instance, we stated that the system includes all rotations around the point (0, 0) with angles from 0 degrees to 360 degrees) we thereby show how the system leads to possible applications. In mathematical terms this is like saying that a group of operations can be shown to have certain structural properties to the effect that such groups can be described and utilized in terms of those properties (like in affine geometry and projective geometry). In that way, groups of operations can be “transformed”.22 But the “facts” about the groups only appear against the background of some originally given set of operations.23 Facts can lead to new complexes, but only if we have a perspicuous presentation of a series of operations answering to these “facts”. When we forget this, we inquire about facts in a sense that makes no sense. Wittgenstein gives two important examples in MS 110: First it is correct that my face always changes its appearance. But this (until I die) never-ending change

22 An excellent account of the issue is Cassirer 1979. 23 Thus I disagree with Felicia DeSmith who describes a perspicuous representation as enabling us to acquire “an understanding of the complete combinatorial, permutational properties of the relationships of all elements to one another” (DeSmith 2005: 68). Hacker (2001: 17–19) explains Wittgenstein’s inspiration from Goethe, Spengler, and Paul Ernst on the issue, but leaves the reader in the dark what “a principle of ordering” might be. Important though is Hacker’s suggestion that Wittgenstein might have thought that there was a wide acceptance of Goethe’s notion of a perspicuous representation “in his own time”.



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of appearance does not answer to variations on the appearance of my face (MS 110: 258).24 Similarly, as long as I live, there is something called “my being present”, but there is nothing called “my presence” that at each moment acquires a new actuality. And this is the sense in which, I think, that “grammar” exemplifies an extension of the idea of mathematics in the TLP. Now we no longer have mathematics elevating a flat universe of logical spaces to a physical world of measures; we have grammar enriching the primordial emotionally laden and highly sophisticated gesture language by supplementing it with a Sprachlehre to the effect that we acquire a perspicuous representation expressing a series of possible intermediate cases, a series of variations.

6 C  oncluding Remarks In a conversation with Friedrich Waismann on 21 September 1931, Wittgenstein talks about what it means to understand a sentence: „Ich verstehe den Satz, indem Ich ihn anwende. Das Verstehen ist also gar kein besonderer Vorgang, sondern ist das Operieren mit dem Satz. Der Satz ist dazu da, dass wir mit ihm operieren. (Auch das, was ich tue, ist eine Operation).“ (Waismann 1967: 167) The notion of a perspicuous representation has its roots in Goethe, though not only his morphology. At least two other features in Goethe should be mentioned. First, the very idea of mathematics which Goethe introduces in his revolutionary essay “Der Versuch als Vermittler von Subjekt und Objekt”, where mathematics is seen, and only seen, as a logic that links different physical experiments.25 Second, Goethe’s Farbenlehre is based on an idea that has been termed Blick-Lenkung, which is an ability to see connections between different kinds of phenomena of colour (physical, biological, social, aesthetic …).26 Morphology is in a sense the mathematics of Blicklenkung. Morphology deals with more than trans-formations. The change of forms may, as such, reveal patterns. So there is a formal parallel between Goethean morphology and the mathematical idea of structures within a series of mathematical operations. I do not know, but it is likely, that Wittgenstein, by learning about Spengler’s attempt in Chap. 1 of Untergang des Abendlandes to link the development of mathematical operations with forms of intellectual work throughout the cultural history of the West, came to see

24 The mention of facial expressions ends with the the remark “Die Frage, Das Problem, in der Mathematik”. 25 Goethe 1999: 18. 26 Schieren 1998: chap. III.2.1. See also Rehbock 1995 and Schulte 1984.

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how the “morphology of mathematical operations” proposed by Spengler could be used, not as Spengler did himself, to provide an evolutionary thesis of cultural development but instead to provide a perspicuous representation in the sense of Goethe’s Farbenlehre.27 Indeed, by seeing morphology as involving Blicklenkung, we can again underscore the relevance of Cavell’s take on Wittgenstein as a philosopher of culture: The notion of a perspicuous representation underscores the everydayness of an issue. It points to the operations which we actually might try to unfold, if there was an occasion where some demonstration or explanation was called for. The “everyday” operations (among which are also sophisticated expert techniques) make sure that the use of sentences does not go astray. They keep the use of the sentences within the weave of life. When language goes on holiday and this becomes the dominant form of expression, then an interlocutor like Wittgenstein feels he is in a kind of exile from his own people, from someone like Frazer. Wittgenstein’s early remarks on Frazer to me are not primarily an attempt to address specific big issues concerning cross cultural understanding, or historical understanding. Wittgenstein is operating. He notices differences and similarities between himself, someone like Frazer, and the primitive people portrayed by both Frazer and Spengler. By going criss-cross among such possible cultural situations – situations seen as giving occasion for raising some questions – thereby Wittgenstein in effect tries to give a perspicuous representation of the many ways in which people can come close to one another or become more distanced. Here there is no major issue about who can learn what from whom, or who is the cleverer in certain respects; we only have the Übersicht of a “multidimensional” set of different situations (where we should be reminded about criteria that govern our lives). A point here is that Wittgenstein, by expressing himself, places himself as just one contingent voice that can be invoked in a variety of situations. This voice is personal but it is far from universal. He is speaking as an intellectual and in that sense what he says is “deep”. But that is the kind of depth which an experienced friend can show you on certain occasions; it is not a God-like or Platonic ability to see things more clearly than other people.

27 See Goethe 1999: 488: “[…] alles, was erscheinen, was uns als ein Phänomen begegnen solle, müsse entweder eine ursprüngliche Entzweiung, die einer Vereinigung fähig ist, oder eine ursprüngliche Einheit, die zur Entzweiung gelangen könne, andeuten und sich auf eine solche Weise darstellen. Das Geeinte zu entzweien, das Entzweite zu einigen, ist das Leben der Natur; dies ist die ewige Systole und Diastole, die ewige Synkrisis und Diakrisis, das Ein- und Ausatmen der Welt, in der wir leben, weben und sind.”



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References Brock, S. (1986) “Billedteorien i Wittgensteins TRACTATUS”, in: Sprog, Moral, Livsform, Århus: Philosophia, 198–224. Brock, S. (2003a) Niels Bohr’s Philosophy of Quantum Physics in the Light of the Helmholtzian Tradition of theoretical Physics, Berlin: Logos. Brock, S. (2003b) On the Three Dimensions of Meaning as Use in Wittgenstein (Institut for Filosofi Skriftserie, Nr. 1, ed. Steen Wackerhausen), Århus. Cassirer, E. (1979) “Reflections on the Concept of Group and the Theory of Perception”, in: Symbol, Myth, Culture, ed. D. Verene, New Haven, Yale University Press, 271–292. Cassirer, E. (1980) Zur modernen Physik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Cavell, S. (1989) “Declining Decline: Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Culture”, in: This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson and Wittgenstein, Albuquerque: Living Batch Press, 29–75. Conant, J. (2001) “Two Conceptions of Die Überwindung der Metaphysik”, in: T. G. McCarthy and S. C. Stidd (eds.): Wittgenstein in America, Oxford: Clarendon, 13–61. DeSmith, F. (2005) “Frazer, Wittgenstein and the Interpretation of Ritual Practice”, in: Macalester Journal of Philosophy 14/1, Article 6. Available at: http://digitalcommons. macalester.edu/philo/vol14/iss1/6. Diamond, C. (2005) “Logical syntax in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”, in: The Philosophical Quarterly 55/218, 78–89. Floyd, J (2004) “Wittgenstein on Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics”, in: Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 25/2, 227–287. Goethe J. W. v. (1999) Goethes Werke, Hamburger Ausgabe, vol. 13: Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften I, Munich: C. H. Beck. Hacker, P. M. S. (2003) “Wittgenstein, Carnap and the New American Wittgensteinians”, in: The Philosophical Quarterly 5/210, 1–23. Hacker, P. M. S. (2004) “Developmental Hypotheses and Perspicuous Representation: Wittgenstein on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 74–97. Marion, M. (1998) Wittgenstein, Finitism and the Foundation of Mathematics, Oxford: Clarendon. Marion, M. (2003) “Wittgenstein and Brouwer”, in: Synthese 137, 103–127. Monk, R. (1990) Wittgenstein. The Duty of Genius, London: Vintage. Rehbock, T. (1995) “Goethe’s Farbenlehre als phänomenologische Grammatik”, in: Goethe und die “Rettung der Phänomene”. Philosophische Kritik des naturwissenschaftlichen Weltbilds am Beispiel der Farbenlehre, Konstanz: Verlag am Hochgraben, 181–260. Schieren, J. (1998) Anschauende Urteilskraft. Methodische und Philosophische Grundlagen von Goethes naturwissenschaftlichem Erkennen, Bonn: Parerga. Schulte, J. (1984) “Chor und Gesetz. Zur ‘Morphologischen Methode’ bei Goethe und Wittgenstein”, in: Grazer philosophische Studien, Internationale Zeitschrift für Analytische Philosophie 21, 1–32. Visser, H. (1999) “Boltzmann and Wittgenstein: or how pictures became linguistic”, in: Synthese 119, 135–156. Waismann, F. (1967) Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, Oxford: Blackwell.

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Waismann, F. (1982) „Das Wesen der Mathematik: Der Standpunkt Wittgensteins“, in W. Grassl (ed.): Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 157–167. Watson, W. H. (1938) On Understanding Physics, London: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1929) “Some Remarks on Logical Form”, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 9 (Knowledge, Experience and Realism), 162–171. Wittgenstein, L. (1974) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, ed. B. F. McGuinness and D. F. Pears, revised edition [first edition: 1961, London/Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul] Wittgenstein, L. (1977) Philosophische Untersuchungen, Frankfurt a. M.:Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, L. (1993) Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Wittgenstein, L. (2011) Wittgenstein’s Kringel-Buch, ed. J. Rothhaupt, Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians Universität.

Early Remarks (The Problem of Understanding)

Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen

It’s a Kind of Magic

Wittgenstein on Understanding and Weltanschauung in the Remarks on Frazer Abstract: The main aim of this article is to unfold and discuss the implications of Wittgenstein’s view of understanding of other human beings as presented in the first part of his Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”. What is offered is a discussion of the requirements that Wittgenstein sees as necessary for the achievement of an adequate understanding of the other human being, especially the role played by the notion of Weltanschauung. It will be argued that in the Frazer remarks, we find three necessary elements in any adequate understanding of others. The first is an understanding of the basic shape of human life, what Wittgenstein later calls the natural history of human beings, the second, a perspicuous representation of the activities to be understood, and finally, an awareness and understanding of the Weltanschauung of others as well as of ourselves. Finally, it will be discussed whether Wittgenstein’s view of understanding amounts to a form of relativism.

1 A  Bad Start In the introduction to Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”, the editor Rhus Rhees quotes a remark from TS 211 that Wittgenstein wanted to exclude and had marked with an ‘S’ for ‘schlecht’, bad.1 Here, Wittgenstein writes: I now believe that it would be right to begin my work with remarks about metaphysics as a kind of magic. But in doing this I must not make a case for magic nor may I make fun of it. The depth of magic should be preserved. – Indeed, here the elimination of magic has itself the character of magic. For, back then, when I began talking about the ‘world’ (and not about this tree or table), what else did I want but to keep something higher spellbound in my words? (RFGB: 116)

1 Here of course noting that the remarks on Frazer are taken from TS 211, and not from TS 221 as stated in Rhees’ introduction. I am grateful to Steen Brock for this observation.

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Bad or not, this is a rather odd remark. Throughout his writings, Wittgenstein was critical of metaphysical tendencies in philosophy, but his view of the dangers of metaphysics changed in his later thinking.2 In line with this, he is here critically referring to unwanted, but at the time unacknowledged, metaphysical tendencies in his early philosophical writings. This disapproval of metaphysics might tempt us into thinking that contempt is what makes Wittgenstein compare metaphysics with another phenomenon of ill repute, namely that of magic. However, we find no traces of contempt in the remark. Wittgenstein instead emphasises that the phenomenon of magic is not to be ridiculed or discarded out of hand. The “depth of magic”, he insists, “should be preserved”. Thus, accordingly, if metaphysics can be seen as “a kind of magic”, it too should not be ridiculed or discarded; it too has a depth to be preserved. One aim of this article is to shed light on what Wittgenstein could mean when he says that the elimination of magic may also be seen as a form of magic, and in what sense he thinks that magic and metaphysics can be said to be of the same ‘kind’. The main aim is however to unfold and discuss the implications of Wittgenstein’s view of understanding of other human beings as presented in the first part of his Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”.3 As such, the article falls within the larger category of philosophical anthropology, but I do not claim to present anything akin to Wittgenstein’s view of the human being. Instead, what is offered is a discussion of the requirements that Wittgenstein sees as necessary for the achievement of an adequate understanding of another human being, especially the role played by Wittgenstein’s notion of Weltanschauung, and its connections to the introductory quote on magic and metaphysics. It will be argued that in the Frazer remarks, we find three necessary elements in any adequate understanding of others. The first is an understanding of the basic shape of the human life form, the second, a perspicuous representation of the activities to be understood, and finally, an awareness and understanding of the Weltanschauung of others as well as of ourselves. Thus, in the next two sections, the concern is to unfold the requirements of the form of description that according to Wittgenstein will provide the best understanding of other human beings as well as an explanation of why he thinks that such descriptions are not easily obtainable. In section four, we digress from our main topic in order to find the right interpretation of Witt-

2 According to Diamond, Wittgenstein comes to hold that the Tractatus is metaphysical, not in tying sense to features of reality, but in “the laying down of a requirement, the requirement of logical analysis” (Diamond 1995: 19). See also below section 4. 3 I choose to focus exclusively on part I of the remarks, because I agree with Westergaard that there are substantial differences between part I and II of the remarks (Westergaard, this anthology).



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genstein’s notion of Weltanschauung, while we in the last two sections return to our main question, that of Wittgenstein’s view of understanding of other human beings, by discussing whether this amounts to a form of relativism.

2 R  equirements of Understanding: Trivialities, Particularities and Weltanschauung What is required in order to understand a human being? Before we turn to Wittgenstein’s writings on Frazer, it is helpful to place these remarks in the wider discussion of the human being found in the Philosophical Investigations; a discussion that also seems to be applicable to the remarks on Frazer.4 As an anti-essentialist, Wittgenstein does not offer us a view of the nature of the human being that could serve as a shortcut to understanding by pointing out the features of humans that are most important or vital. Rather, his understanding of what it is to be a human being is tied to his understanding of what it is to have a human life; an approach similar to that found in the philosophical anthropology of the early 20th century.5 Wittgenstein thus primarily understands the human being as unfolding, in general, the human way of living, specifically, a particular instance of such a life. According to Wittgenstein’s later writings, any adequate understanding of a human being thus starts from an understanding of that human as a particular realisation of a common human form of life; a life-form consisting of all the many basic ways of acting found in a human life.6 Wittgenstein presents such ways of acting as fundamental, not because he thinks they are biologically or developmentally primary, but because they collectively form the background that shapes our understanding of the lives of humans, what Wittgenstein sometimes calls ‘the natural history’ of human beings as in this quote from Philosophical Investigations. “– Commanding, questioning, storytelling, chatting are as much a part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing” (PI §25).7 The notion of natural history is basic, but it is important to note how it encompasses both ‘natural’ ways of acting such as eating and drinking and other practices as well

4 Or rather, it is a framework the basic elements of which are being established here, in Wittgenstein’s remarks from the early 1930s. 5 This idea is prominent in for example the philosophy of Helmuth Plessner (1975 [1928]). 6 Cf. PI §23. 7 See also RPP I, §78, PI §415 and RFM I: 141.

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as ways of acting that we might call ‘social’ or even ‘cultural’ such as commanding, telling stories and – especially relevant in this context – ritual practices. If we turn to Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”, Wittgenstein also draws up as fundamental activities with both natural and cultural origins: [O]ne could begin a book on anthropology by saying: When one examines the life and behavior of mankind throughout the world, one sees that, except for what might be called animal activities, such as ingestion, etc., etc., etc., men also perform actions which bear a characteristic peculiar to themselves, and these could be called ritualistic actions. (RFGB: 129)

Both natural and cultural activities form the background necessary for an understanding of other human beings, because acquaintance with both is required in order to make sense of our many ways of acting and living. This also means that the bare mentioning of any of these activities is equally uninformative. We learn just as little about a person or a particular people, when we learn that they drink, as when we learn that they tell stories. This understanding of the facts of our natural history raises some familiar questions about their role for our understanding of others. First, if we already know these facts, how can we ever fail to notice them? Second, if the mentioning of the facts comprising the natural history of human beings really is uninformative, how can they contribute to our understanding of other human beings? For now, we will postpone finding an answer to the first question while we try to answer the second and equally important one. Central to Wittgenstein’s answer is the idea of adequate description or ‘perspicuous representation’. We achieve an understanding of others not by explaining ‘why’ they do what they do – why they eat and drink and perform ritualistic actions – this why will always just refer us back to the natural history mentioned above and our ‘kinship’ with other human beings (cf. RFGB: 133). With regard to the why, we can only, in Wittgenstein’s words, “describe and say: this is what human life is like” (RFGB: 121). However, an adequate description of human beings can instead provide us with an understanding of the ‘how’, how these particular human beings eat and drink, command, tell stories and practice rituals. Thus, an adequate understanding requires an adequate description of the particular shape or form that basic human activities take for particular human beings in particular circumstances. In the Frazer remarks, Wittgenstein insists that to understand the other we only need correctly to piece together what we already know (RFGB: 121),8 because in doing so we will “direct attention to the similarity,

8 Cf. PI §126.



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the relatedness of the facts” (RFGB: 133). Thus, adequate descriptions are made “by means of arrangement of the factual content alone” and such descriptions bring about an “understanding which consists precisely in the fact that we ‘see connections’” (RFGB: 133). That is, a perspicuous representation allows the activities of others to make sense for us by making evident, first, the general layout and point of the activities described and, second, their connections with tendencies, dangers, activities and ways of acting familiar to ourselves (cf. RFGB: 127).9 Wittgenstein’s point is that in order to understand other human beings, we do not need to refer to hidden explanations in the form of implicit proto-scientific hypotheses – as Frazer does – or psychological, neurological or evolutionary explanations (cf. RFGB: 119). Explanations of, for example, ritualistic actions may be informative, but they will never be necessary in order for us to understand such practices.10 It may well be that some rituals are attempts at manipulating the soil, are connected to human expressivity, or spring from necessary evolutionary adaptions. However, in order for these practices to survive they must have a point that is accessible to the participants in that practice, and by implication, a point that is in principle accessible for any other human being (cf. RFGB: 121).11 What we need in order to understand others is therefore to connect the particularities of the specific human way of acting under investigation to a general human way of acting, keeping in mind how this general and shared form of acting connects to the particularities of a particular way of acting of our own as well as to familiar ways of reacting and feeling with regard to this way of acting. Wittgenstein gives a number of examples of such connections. One concerns the myth of the priestking of Nemi who lived in the forest in a state of permanent vigilance, because he would only hold his position until someone else were cunning or strong enough

9 See also Brock, section 2 (in this anthology). 10 I here tend to agree with readings of the text that claims that Wittgenstein is offering a correction of Frazer’s exclusive focus on explanation, see e.g. Schaffalitzky de Muckadell 2014 (in this anthology) or Westergaard’s ‘rhapsodic’ reading of the remarks (Westergaard 2013: 85ff.). That being said, the reading presented here primarily draws on what we – following Westergaard – could call a ‘philosophical’ readings of the remarks as exemplified in Rhees 1971 and DeSmith 2005. 11 Pleasants argues that expressive accounts of rituals may also fall prey to this problem. As an example, he discusses Winch’s expressivist interpretation of Zande magic in Winch 1970. Pleasants argue that “Winch’s account looks suspiciously like conventional social scientific modes of explanation, in which the social scientist advances an ‘explanation’ which aims to reveal what practitioners are really doing, in contrast to what they think they are doing and what they appear to be doing” (Pleasants 2010: 298). Such an explanation would, just like Frazer’s scientific explanations, be different from the form of understanding promoted by Wittgenstein, which is in principle accessible to everyone.

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to succeed in killing him and thereby taking it over. The question is how to understand such a ritual. Wittgenstein remarks: If a narrator places the priest-king of Nemi and “the majesty of death” side by side, he realizes that they are one and the same. The life of the priest-king shows what is meant by this phrase. (RFGB: 123)

The particular form of danger hanging over the priest-king is of course not one with which any of us is familiar. However, in its general form, in the form of the danger of eminent death, it is – unfortunately – one with which we all will be confronted during our lives. Wittgenstein’s point is simply that the danger and experience of death appearing without warning, and the horrible majesty following such death is a shared element in human life, and that it forms a part of the background that makes this rather odd ritual understandable for us. Facts of the natural history of human beings thus serve as a ‘connecting link’ between the life of other human beings and our own particular way of living. In order to understand others, we need to connect the how of the other with a how familiar to ourselves. Of course, such facts are not all that we need in order to understand other human beings; we also require a thorough description of the circumstances in which a particular way of acting unfolds, of the “surroundings of a way of acting” (RFGB: 147). In this way, the attempt to understand another human being requires that we describe the nitty-gritty particulars of their particular way of acting and living and the complex circumstances in which this life unfolds, and furthermore that we, through the general facts of natural history, connect all of this to the nitty-gritty particulars of our particular way of living and the complex circumstances in which our own life unfolds. We should however be aware of the role and status of the perspicuous representation that enables our understanding. In one sense, the ideal of the perspicuous representation is the ideal of presenting a neutral description of the facts of a way of acting or living. This is the point of the remark that the description is made “by means of arrangement of the factual content alone” (RFGB: 133). In another sense, however, a perspicuous representation is much more than a presentation of a bundle of facts and in this sense, it is in no way neutral. This is because the perspicuous representation reveals these facts as having particular connections, as representing a particular order or coherence that provides them with a particular meaning for those inhabiting this particular way of acting and living. In an adequate description of other human beings, we display the particular meaning that they attach to eating and drinking, commanding and telling stories, we could say. Moreover, by connecting the presented meaning to our ways of acting and



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living – by presenting it as having particular similarities, particular connecting links to our own life – the perspicuous representation presents this meaning both as different from the one established in our own lives and as a meaning that we can nonetheless understand. It thus reveals both the similarity and the difference or distance between the people, whom we describe, and we, who describe. In doing so, the description also reveals our own way of seeing life and the world as meaningful; what Wittgenstein in the Frazer remarks calls our ‘Weltanschauung’.12 We can here let Wittgenstein sum up: “And so the chorus points to a secret law” one feels like saying to Frazer’s collection of facts. I can represent this law, this idea, by means of an evolutionary hypothesis, or also, analogous to the schema of a plant, by means of the schema of a religious ceremony, but also by means of arrangement of its factual content alone, in a ‘perspicuous’ representation. The concept of perspicuous representation is of fundamental importance for us. It denotes the form of our representation, the way we see things. (A kind of ‘World-view’ as it is apparently typical of our time. Spengler.) (RFGB: 133)

What Wittgenstein highlights is that our attempt to understand others reveals how a fundamental Weltanschauung also shapes our understanding of reality. Such a world-view, what Wittgenstein here calls ‘the way we see things’, thus consists in the way we order the facts of human life, our activities and lives in terms of meaning, in a structure that is similar to what we might call culture, but here with the emphasis on how such order shape our basic understanding of and relation to others and the world. As Genova writes, the perspicuous representation is a “means of representation” or “a kind of ‘net’ of describing reality” (Genova 1995:  25 and 27, respectively). Wittgenstein thus draws up three necessary elements in any adequate understanding of others. The first is a correct understanding of the natural history of human beings. The other is an overview of the particular facts, activities and lives in question as well as of the circumstances in which they unfold. The third condition is an awareness and understanding of ‘the form of our representation, the way we see things’, of our Weltanschauung, and how this differs from other possible Weltanschauungs.

12 This concept is not to be confused with the concept of Weltbild as used in On Certainty. For a short discussion of the difference between Wittgenstein’s notions of Weltanschauung and Weltbild, see the end of section 4.

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3 D  ifficulties of Understanding: Surveying One’s World-view We should be aware, however, that the interplay between the three elements involved in understanding; an adequate understanding of our natural history, of the facts involved and of one’s Weltanschauung, is not simple. To see why, we will return to the question we posed earlier: If the facts of our natural history – even if general – are utterly familiar and shared, how can we ever fail to notice them? According to Wittgenstein, the main reason for this failure is precisely the trivial character of these ways of acting. It is because we find such facts obvious that we are all too often blind to their importance in cases when we are trying to understand others – just as we are all too often blind to their importance to ourselves. To understand Wittgenstein’s reasons for this claim, we can look at what Wittgenstein finds is a prominent example of such an oversight, namely Frazer’s attempt to explain ritual practices by reference to implicit or subconscious hypotheses and opinions of practitioners. What Frazer fails to notice is how many of the described practices are similar to practices that Frazer would consider completely uncontroversial ways of acting. Wittgenstein remarks: I should like to say: nothing shows our kinship to those savages better than the fact that Frazer has on hand a word as familiar to himself and to us as ‘ghost’ or ‘shade’ in order to describe the views of these people. […] Indeed, this peculiarity relates not only to the expressions ‘ghost’ and ‘shade’ and much too little is made of the fact that we count the words ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ as part of our educated vocabulary. Compared with this, the fact that we do not believe that our soul eats and drinks is a trifling matter. (RFGB: 133)

The presence of concepts such as ‘ghost’, ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ shows that the educated Englishman also has meaningful ways of handling and acting with such words; ways of acting that need not involve any hypothesis about such phenomena being possible objects of manipulation or of scientific investigations.13 Wittgenstein here has a special interest in forms of acting that establish the significance or meaning of a particular phenomenon, as the rain dance establishes a particular connection between a tribe and the rain (RFGB: 137) and the adoption

13 Others examples that do not rest on any assumptions about hidden causal connections, but still seem complete natural to us, and would also seems so to Frazer (or so Wittgenstein implies), are those of venting one’s anger by hitting the ground with a stick (RFGB: 137) or that of kissing the picture of one’s beloved (RFGB: 123).



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ritual establishes a new order – a new member – in a family (RFGB: 125). Wittgenstein is suggesting that Frazer overlooks how these ways of acting connect to ways of establishing meaning that is familiar to him; just as he overlooks the general fact that some phenomena will come to have a particular significance for human beings. Some such phenomena take on significance often, as Wittgenstein notes: [A] man’s shadow, which looks like him, or his mirror-image, the rain, the thunderstorms, the phases of the moon, the changing of the seasons, the way in which animals are similar to and different from one another and in relation to man, the phenomena of death, birth and sexual life, in short, everything we observe around us year in and year out, interconnected in so many different ways, will play a part in his thinking (his philosophy) and in his practices (RFGB: 127–129).

Other phenomena take on such significance more rarely. In his diary of 1930, Wittgenstein mentions a more uncommon case, that of assigning significance to a particular scientific discovery. “A discovery is neither great nor small; it depends on what it signifies to us. [Copernican discoveries and Einstein’s discoveries] are – no matter how great their practical value, many-sided interests etc. – only as great as they are significant (symbolic)” (PPO: 30, 6.5.30). Wittgenstein is thus distinguishing between two different facts. One fact is that phenomena such as “the rain, the thunderstorms, the phases of the moon” as well as scientific discoveries may be useful for us (in some way or another). The other fact is that there is a way of acting common to humans consisting in the accordance of significance. In light of this, we could say that Frazer’s fault is that he is blinded by the foreignness of the significance established by the rituals he is studying, and that this makes him unable to see that the accordance of significance are versions of a way of acting that he shares. Thus, he is unable to see the connection between such ways of assigning significance and ways of acting familiar to himself. The critique that Frazer overlooks human ways of acting that ought to be completely familiar to him does however raise a different problem. Wittgenstein openly deplores what he sees as Frazer’s tendency to regard the ‘primitives’ as naïve (see e.g. RFGB: 119). Now we – with Wittgenstein – seem to regard Frazer in a similar way, as really rather dim. Wittgenstein is indeed outspoken in his critique of Frazer on this point, as he criticises Frazer not just for presenting “unsatisfactory views” and “crude explanations” (RFGB: 119, 131), but also for his “narrow spiritual life” and for his being “more savage than most of his savages” (RFGB: 125, 131). However, as we have already noted, Wittgenstein does (in calmer moods) himself discuss a number of reasons why it is in general not easy to get hold of an adequate understanding of basic and familiar ways of acting. One such reason is – as we saw – that such ways of acting are often hard to notice simply due to their familiarity, that is, we do not notice that this way of acting is indeed

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a part of our own life (cf. PU §129). Another reason is that a way of acting, such as the assigning of significance, even though familiar, may take a completely different form in the lives of others, making us unable to make the connection between what ‘they’ do and what ‘we’ do, and this is what might be the case when the educated Englishman cannot see the connection between the other’s adoration of the rain and the stars and his own adoration of the wonders of modern science. To these two reasons, Wittgenstein adds a third, of special interest to us, namely that we sometimes fail to acknowledge or even notice basic ways of acting such as the accordance of significance, because we do not want to see them. In these cases, we fail to consider them for reasons that have to do, not with the phenomena under investigation, that is, the complexities of human ways of acting, but with ourselves and our particular Weltanschauung, for example that we do not want to acknowledge that a particular way of acting is also to be found in our lives. We may for example not see ourselves as doing anything that would amount to accordance of significance. ‘This is in and of itself significant’, we may want to say, despite the fact that other people simply fails to see it as such; ‘The significance of science is evident’, as the educated Englishman of Frazer’s time may want to insist. That is, significance may appear to us as necessary, as springing from the phenomenon itself, even if the significance relates to our particular understanding of life and of what is of value in such a life; our particular Weltanschauung. Wittgenstein’s point here is that even if the ways of acting that make up our natural history are trivially a part of human life, the meaning they establish is crucial to us in a very nontrivial manner – so crucial in fact, that we may be very reluctant to accept that it is possible to see the world differently. When Wittgenstein calls Frazer “more savage than most of his savages” (RFGB: 131), he is not accusing Frazer for being wrong, he is rather objecting to the fact that Frazer does not see that his own explanation “is only one way of assembling the data” (RFGB:  131). In lectures from 1933, Wittgenstein returns to Frazer’s blindness towards his own scientistic world-view. In a discussion of Frazer’s evolutionary explanations of – amongst others – the ritual of burning an effigy, Wittgenstein notes, “The idea is: Action can only be explained, as having as its motive to get something useful. But in fact: We don’t do everything, even in any degree, to get food etc. If a man says we do, that is a mere rule of grammar” (lecture 6). That is, Frazer is not showing that the rituals he discusses necessarily originate from assumptions about causal connections and the usefulness of certain practices. Rather, he is assuming that it has to be this way. Frazer has made this assumption into a ‘rule of grammar’.14 This is the core of Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer, that

14 In the lectures, Wittgenstein makes a parallel point with regard to Darwin’s evolutionary ac-



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by assuming that he represents a neutral vantage point, Frazer becomes blind to the fact that he too inhabits a particular world-view, and he becomes blind to the way his own world-view shapes and distorts his understanding of the practices of other human beings. Wittgenstein is not criticising the scientific model that Frazer is using nor is he criticising science in general. Instead, he is criticising the thoughtlessness with which Frazer lets a scientific model of testing through hypothesis, of explanations and manipulation shape his general world-view; and he is criticising Frazer’s world-view for being too impoverished to serve as a framework for an understanding of other people. In short, Wittgenstein is criticising the scientism that Frazer exhibits in thinking that science can provide us with a frame of reference that is adequate with regard to an understanding of the complex web of actions, practices, rituals, of “changes of meaning” (RFGB: 135) that is realised in the particular lives of human beings.

4 A  Rather Long, but Still All Too Short Digression on Wittgenstein’s View of Weltanschauung In the Frazer remarks, Wittgenstein thus insists that in order to strive for an adequate understanding of others, we need to see that we do not stand on neutral territory. This point does not just apply to the case of Frazer. On the contrary, Wittgenstein is showing how our understanding of the lives and practices of others is always influenced by a particular world-view; that being a form of scientism as in the case of Frazer or a form of ritualistic world-views as in the case of many of the people that Frazer describes. We are always embedded in a Weltanschauung that shapes our understanding of what is important, of what may be significant, of what may be the point of what, etc.15 Importantly, without such a framework or way of ordering the world, we could not strive for understanding at all. Here we find the background necessary in order to understand Wittgenstein’s remark, quoted in the

count of facial expression as important for survival. To the question, “Why does Darwin think that without it we would be unintelligible?”, Wittgenstein answers: “because he finds expressions are very important, & then thinks that they can be important only if useful” (lecture 4a, see Citron, Rogers, Stern in this volume, p. 93). 15 Miller even says that Wittgenstein sees Weltanschauung as “a view as to the purpose of life or the world as a whole” (Miller 1964: 127, my italics). This description does however seem to be too demanding, as we find nothing in Wittgenstein’s writings – at least not from the early 1930s and onwards – to exclude forms of Weltanschauung offering ‘a view of life of the world as a whole’ that do not involve any idea of a unifying purpose.

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introduction of this paper, that metaphysics is itself “a kind of magic” (RFGB: 116), namely that both magic and metaphysics should be considered in the same way, as shaping possible ways to see the world. Scientism, magic, metaphysics, are all considered forms of Weltanschauungs, and if one is exchanged for another, then “the elimination of magic has itself the character of magic” (RFGB: 116).16 Furthermore, we should note that Wittgenstein is not saying that Frazer’s scientism is wrong – and by implication, he is not saying that ritualistic or traditional metaphysical world-views are wrong either. Even if elements in a scientistic, magical or metaphysical world-view can be expressed in hypotheses, a worldview does not express beliefs about the world. This means that such hypotheses cannot, as part of a world-view, be evaluated by as right or wrong and even less as true or false. What Wittgenstein does instead, is to evaluate them in terms of understanding, asking whether the understanding they enable – of the world, of other people – is narrow, crude and savage, as in Frazer’s case, or whether it is constructive and fertile, providing us with a rich understanding of the phenomena in our interest. Wittgenstein is not trying to refute Frazer’s hypothesis; he is trying to make us see that with regard to understanding, the world-view of Frazer is inferior to that of the perspicuous representation. This also means that Wittgenstein does seem to think that this, his own method of understanding, is itself another way of seeing things, a form of Weltanschauung that is parallel to that of Frazer. As Wittgenstein does indeed note, the perspicuous representation is itself “A kind of ‘World-view’”, one that is “apparently typical of our time” (RFGB: 133). In the Frazer remarks, Wittgenstein thus draws out a picture according to which we are always under the influence of a Weltanschauung, of one ‘kind of magic’ or another. The important task is here to find a particular fertile or constructive one. We can thus see the remarks as a part of Wittgenstein’s own attempt to develop such a fertile Weltanschauung. We might even ask whether the method of the perspicuous representation is also a form of elimination of magic that ‘has itself the character of magic’. Wittgenstein does however come to have reservations towards this understanding of his own philosophical method as a form of Weltanschauung. In order to see this and to get a clearer view of his understanding of this concept, we need to take a short detour around the use of Weltanschauung in Wittgenstein’s writings, and we thus venture beyond the Frazer remarks. In the Nachlass, Weltanschauung is used 17 times. However, as a number of these uses appear in repeti-

16 This reading differs from Brock’s insistence that the difference between Frazer and Wittgenstein is not a difference between two normative frameworks or Weltanschauungs, but between “two living diversities” (see Brock, in this anthology).



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tions or variations of the same remarks, we are left with four remarks or groups of remarks, three of which are relevant to our current concern.17 The first remark is from Wittgenstein’s early writings and appears in identical version in the Notebooks 1914–1916 (NB 6.5.16) and again in the Tractatus.18 Here Wittgenstein writes: The whole modern Weltanschauung is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. Thus people today stop at the laws of nature as something inviolable, just as God and Fate where treated by the ancients. In fact, both are right and both wrong: Though the view of the ancients is clearer, in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained. (TLP 6.371–6.372; translation revised)

Wittgenstein here notes the presence of a modern, scientistic Weltanschauung very like the one that he later will find exemplified in Frazer’s writings, and he compares the role of this form of scientism to the role played by God or Fate in other systems of thought namely that of providing a limit or ‘terminus’ of thinking. He finally suggests that when we look at the considered world-views, we should not take one to be right and the other to be wrong; rather we should consider as superior the Weltanschauung that wears its role as frame of reference on its sleeve, so to speak. That is, Wittgenstein does not think that we can establish the rightness of a world-view by reference to the world, a point paralleled by his insistence that any necessary laws are established in our dealings with the world, not by the world itself (cf. TLP 6.7373–6.375). Instead, we should see how well a world-view fills out its role as our frame of reference and how transparent this role is to us. The next group of remarks are all versions of the remark appearing in Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”. It first occurs in identical versions in three typescripts from the years 1932–33, all saying that perspicuous representation is a “kind of ‘World-view’”.19 After this, however, we find an interesting development.

17 I will provide references for each of these three remarks or groups of remarks in the following. The forth remark is from MS 137: 135a (1949) and is also printed in Culture and Value. Here Wittgenstein writes about humour as a Weltanschauung (CV: 88e). 18 In the Nachlass, the relevant references are MS 103: 7 (1916) and MS 104: 81 (1918) (in the Prototractatus). 19 The first instance of this remark is found in MS 110: 257 (1931) the next in TS 211: 282; the typescript from which the Remarks on Frazer “Golden Bough” is collected. The two others instances can be found in TS 212: 1144 (1932–33) and TS 213: 417 (1933), the so-called “Big Typescript”.

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When the remark appears again in two typescripts made in the years from 1936 to 1938, the wording is changed. After the sentence presenting the notion of perspicuous representation, Wittgenstein now writes, “Vielleicht ist dies eine Art der ‘Weltanschauung’”; only maybe is this a form of world-view.20 Moreover, Wittgenstein’s reservation grows. When the remark reappears in manuscripts leading up to the Philosophical Investigations, perspicuous representation is presented not as a form of, but instead just ‘similar to’ (“Ähnlich”) a Weltanschauung.21 Finally, in the last instances of this remark, in the manuscripts of the Philosophical Investigation, Wittgenstein’s reserve is clear: “The concept of perspicuous representation is of fundamental importance for us. It denotes the form of our representation, the way we see things. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)” (PU §122, translation amended).22 In the development of this remark, we can thus see a development in Wittgenstein’s evaluation of the role played by his own method. In the Frazer remarks, Wittgenstein seems to assume that having a Weltanschauung is unavoidable, implying that the viewpoint of the perspicuous representation is itself a form of Weltanschauung. Here, the only question open is the question of what kind of world-view is the most fertile or constructive one. Later, however, Wittgenstein appears less convinced and opens the possibility that his philosophical method – as it finds it fullest expression in the Philosophical Investigations – is not just another form of Weltanschauung, but rather a way of exposing and loosening the grip of the various forms such Weltanschauungs take. Here, the perspicuous representation are presented less as a particular way of seeing things and more as a method for accomplishing the task of making particular world-views transparent to us.23 Wittgenstein thus opens the possibility that there is indeed ways to eliminate magic which do not itself have ‘the character of magic’. Nonetheless, as the question mark in the remark from the Philosophical Investigations shows, Wittgenstein is still not fully comfortable with this conclusion. We find the same ambiguity in his last remark involving the concept of Weltanschauung, this time from On Certainty. Just before the remark, Wittgenstein is discussing the certainty that he is in England, and he notes how everything seems to confirm this sentence, how useful it is not to make it the object of doubt. Self-reflectively, Wittgenstein then notes, “So I am trying to say something that

20 See MS 142: 107 (1936) and MS 220: 81 (1937–38). 21 See TS 238: 8 (1942–43) and TS 239: 82 (1942–43). 22 See TS 227a: 88 and 227b: 88 (1944–46). 23 See also Albinus’ “Wittgenstein, Frazer and the Apples of Sodom”, section 4–5 (in this anthology).



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sounds like pragmatism. Here I am thwarted by a kind of Weltanschauung” (OC §422). In the commentary, we find at least two ways to read this remark. According to Judith Genova, Wittgenstein’s remark indicates that he is critical of all forms of Weltanschauungs because he sees them all as involving the very form of theoretical and philosophical constructions from which he is trying to free us. Genova therefore assumes that she can go on to give a general characterisation of Wittgenstein’s view of Weltanschauung: Its propositions are offered in the spirit of hypotheses and theories. It proposes new knowledge and thinks of itself in competition with science [and] mistakes a conceptual investigation for a physical one […] A Weltanschauung forgets its status as a way of seeing and parades itself as the way of seeing. It takes itself too seriously, as the ultimate explanation and foundation of our convictions. (Genova 1995: 50)

Thus, Genova argues, Wittgenstein’s aim is to loosen the grip of world-views altogether and she concludes that: “The last thing Wittgenstein wanted was to simply exchange one world-view for another” (Genova 1995: 17). According to this critical view, Wittgenstein now thinks that we should strive to clear ourselves of particular Weltanschauungs in the same way as we should strive to clear ourselves of metaphysical theories; in both cases, we should avoid being caught in what is really just another form of magic. As we have already seen in connection with our discussion of the remarks on Frazer, there is support for the claim that Wittgenstein is critical of any Weltanschauung that presents itself in the form of a hypothesis supported by facts about the world. If we look back at our systematic exposition of the little that Wittgenstein actually says about the notion of Weltanschauung, it is less clear however how Genova finds support for the claim that Wittgenstein considers all forms of Weltanschauung to be of this sort. This opens for another way to read his remark from On Certainty. We find such an alternative presented by James C. Edwards, who reads the remark as if Wittgenstein is being struck by an awareness of the possibility that his reflections “can be literalized into philosophical constructions; […] a kind of later-day pragmatism, for example: the truth is what it is good for us to believe” (Edwards 1985: 184). This is in line with Genova’s reading, but Edwards here refrains from moving on to a more general characterisation of Weltanschauung. Instead, Edwards continues: “But he insists that to do so is to thwart his real intention; it is to be seduced by a particular Weltanschauung, one which assumes that the response to a philosophical puzzlement must be the promulgation and defense of a philosophical thesis” (Edwards 1985: 184). Here Wittgenstein is not trying to free us from all forms of Weltanschauung, but

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a particular one involving particular assumptions about what philosophy is, and how it is done.24 Genova and Edwards thus agree in stressing how Wittgenstein urges us to avoid any form of Weltanschauung that presents itself in an explanatory guise, because this prevents us from reaching a self-reflective understanding of its role in our thinking and its status as a frame of reference, a way of seeing things. We can see this point as the reason leading Wittgenstein in On Certainty to use the concept of Weltbild (world-picture) rather than Weltanschauung.25 One methodological advantage of the concept of Weltbild is that the included reference to pictures means that it does not pose as knowledge; it immediately displays its lack of epistemological grounding. As Genova notes, in contrast to world-views the concept of Weltbild “completely avoids the knowledge game” (Genova 1995: 50). Another advantage of this reference to pictures is that it makes us aware of the piecemeal character of our Weltbild, how it is made up by a number of elements, some of which may gradually change (cf. OC §97, §99). However, we should also note that there is a fundamental difference between what is being described by the notions of Weltanschauung and Weltbild, respectively. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein draws out the notion of Weltbild to denote the foundation of our way of thinking; a foundation that we cannot change without revising a large part, not just of our belief systems, but also of what we trust, take for granted etc. In contrast, a Weltanschauung is an overarching form of representation, which involves general connections and assumptions of which we can become aware and reflect upon. Weltanschauung thus denotes a particular way of modelling the world; it is tied to something that we do and it is thus something for which we can be held responsible and which we may work to change. Is it possible to resolve the question of whether Wittgenstein understands the notion of Weltanschauung as inherently or just potentially problematic? My suggestion is that the answer is no, the available material is here simply too limited.26 However, I do want to argue for the need for both concepts in the present discussion about the understanding of human beings. Genova seems right to insist that as philosophers, we should indeed work to free ourselves of any form of Weltanschauung. According to Wittgenstein, a philosopher is indeed “not a

24 Nuagle seems mistakenly to think that the readings of Genova and Edwards are on par here, see Nuagle 2002: 152. 25 For Wittgenstein’s treatment of Weltbild see e.g. OC §§93–97, §§162–167, §§ 208–210. For an attempt to unfold the idea of an ethical Weltbild, see Christensen 2011. 26 The material does, however, raise some problems for Nicholas F. Gier’s suggestion that Wittgenstein in his later writings moves “in the direction of a full Weltanschauungsphilosophie” (Gier 1981: 48).



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member of any community of ideas. That is what makes him into a philosopher” (Z §455). However, he do not consider this freeing oneself from a particular ‘community of ideas’ to be an easy task, and it is questionable whether he thinks that we can completely succeed in doing so. Moreover, there does not seem to be any argument to support the idea that Wittgenstein would think that we in general, when we are not doing philosophy, can rid ourselves of having a Weltanschauung. If this is right, we will in our understanding of others have to take into account that they find orientation in the world, not just on the basis of a Weltbild, but also guided by a general framework, a general way of seeing, a Weltanschauung. Thus, in order to understand the other person, we will have to take into account how her Weltanschauung shapes her general orientation in the world.

5 The World of the Other: Contested World-views This leads us directly to another well-rehearsed question within Wittgenstein commentary, namely that of relativism. If our understanding of others is conditioned by a world-view, the question is how we can then talk of the right understanding of others and of our common world. Here we should distinguish between two questions regarding relativism. The first, and most pressing question for our current investigation of understanding of the other, is the question of relativism with regard to the possibility of understanding. Here, the question is whether understanding is possible across different forms of Weltanschauung, or whether we are excluded from understanding human beings inhabiting a world-view differing substantially from our own. We already have the resources needed to answer this question. According to Wittgenstein, it is always possible for us – no matter our world-view, culture or background – to understand other human beings. This is the point of the idea of the natural history of human beings, what we above called the basic ways of acting or trivialities of human life. Understanding is always possible, as long as we strive to connect the particular form these trivialities take in our life with the unfamiliar form they take in the life of the other. When Wittgenstein considers the very limit of our understanding, he thus leaves examples involving human beings and instead turns to examples about the possible understanding of lions, Martians or creatures that exhibit a natural history fundamentally different from our own (cf. PI note p. 46, p. 190, §207). According to Wittgenstein, we are thus always able to understand the activities and lives of the other by becoming aware of the likeness between our fundamental ways of acting and the possible differences of the world-views in which

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these activities are organised. There is however a different question, quite distinct from the question of relativism of understanding, namely the question of what we might call relativism with regard to the real. This is the question of the relation between a world-view and reality, where a particular Weltanschauung enables a genuine hold on reality, on what there is. Wittgenstein’s answer to this question is a contested issue, and suggested accounts of his answer are quite diverse. According to some interpreters, Wittgenstein’s philosophy results in a blatant relativism, by making any view of ‘what there is’ internal to specific world-views and a particular form of life and thus immune to external criticism.27 According to others, Wittgenstein’s remarks on the natural history of human beings and lifeform amount to a form of transcendental naturalism that establishes necessary – though natural – categories for any human understanding of the real.28 The account of Wittgenstein’s view of understanding offered here seems to indicate a middle course between these two positions. The key to understanding, Wittgenstein is insisting, is to understand the interplay between shared and familiar ways of acting and living, the “gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise” of human beings (PU §207), and the fact that these are organised within a Weltanschauung that may be very different from our own. Understanding thus requires the interplay of three elements: an understanding of our shared human life-form,29 of the form of world-view of the other human being as well as of our own. However, as both groups of interpreters overlook the interplay between relative and shared elements in human life, we may also suspect that neither of the two can offer us much help in our attempt to understand Wittgenstein’s position with regard to ‘the real’. While the first group dismiss the possibility of discussing the question of the real across different world-views, the other cannot account for the importance of world-views, and they are thus equally ill equipped to investigate the connection between having a world-view and addressing questions of the real. In a discussion that is rather more helpful, Cora Diamond attempts to unfold and substantiate a middle position. She concedes that according to Wittgenstein, we ordinarily ask questions about the real within a settled framework of a worldview. However, she wants to point out that it is also possible for us to ask a differ-

27 See e.g. Nyíri 1981, Gellner 1992, and – on one possible reading – Winch 1964. 28 Garver 1994a and 1994b. 29 Here, I agree with Garver’s insistence that the singular version of the concept of life-form is fundamental in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, while insisting that this has to be supplemented by an understanding of the various lifeforms, exhibiting various world-views, that arises from this shared foundation.



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ent form of questions about the real, namely the form of question that arises when two different world-views and their view of the real collide. In these cases, we can think of reality in light of this conflict, that is, we can think of the understanding of reality as contested. Diamond thus urges us to note the “contrast between the way the notion of real and unreal works in the dispute and the way the notions of real and unreal work in the two systems of thought that are at odds” (Diamond 2012: 119). In the first case, “the space for the dispute between the two forms of thought is not given in advance; it is not provided by either of the modes of thought that are in conflict” (ibid.). That is, what can be taken as rational ground for a judgement about the real is itself part of what is to be settled in the conflict. In this way, Diamond contrasts the view of the relativist with another view that she sees exemplified in Anscombe’s writings on On Certainty that acknowledges the possibility of such conflicts without a shared universe of discourse and a shared set of standards. The particular strength of the Anscombian view, as developed by Diamond, is that it allows for cases where we are able to think about and evaluate the standards by which we and others judge real and unreal, and that it thus allows for the possibility of a development in our understanding of what is real and what is unreal. Diamond here takes as her example the practice of witchcraft. If we discuss the existence of witches and witchcraft with people, who seriously believe in them, we thereby also engage in a wider discussion of or conflict about what can and cannot count as real. Such a discussion must take into account not just the way the notion of the real works for the believers in witchcraft, and the way it works for us, the non-believers, but also an understanding of how these two notions conflict. One obvious consequence is that in a discussion of witchcraft, we cannot refer to standards of correctness laid out by any of the frameworks in question. Moreover, the general foundation of our common natural history, the trivialities of human life, as emphasised by the proponents of transcendental naturalism, do not help us here, because they are much too general to settle this issue. Instead, what we can do, according to Diamond, is to see the discussion as one where we, in offering reasons for or against witchcraft, are at the same time engaging in a discussion about what should count as a reason. The discussion does not just concern certain isolated beliefs about particular actions and events, because as these beliefs are linked to general issues, such issues also become part of the dispute. As Diamond phrases it: When we think about present-day difficulties in Africa concerning how to deal with witchcraft accusations, it seems plain that we have (broadly speaking) two different world-views, which differ from each other on two central issues. One is the issue of the nature of human agency, including in particular what sorts of things that people can do. It is (for example)

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part of our world-view that human agency does not include making lightning strike a particular person rather than a tree or something else […] The other issue concerns what is reasonable evidence; it is part of our world-view, but not that of the defenders of witch-finding in Africa, that divination (for example) does not provide reasonable evidence of harm-doing. (Diamond 2012: 125)

Particular beliefs about actions and evidence are thus embedded in or held in place by larger frameworks. In order to assess two different sets of beliefs about what people can do, for example, we thus need to understand how these beliefs are integrated in a wider conception of human agency that among others things includes a conception of what we can meaningfully hold others to be responsible for and what we ourselves will be held responsible for. This means that we cannot settle the discussion about the existence of witchcraft simply by comparing the beliefs of the world that include witches with the ones that do not. Instead, we are forced to discuss not just beliefs about the world, but the framework for our understanding of such beliefs. That is, we have to discuss the best background for an understanding of what is real and what is not, and this discussion provides us with a possibility to develop a new notion of the real; even if we may – as we in discussions of witchcraft surely will – fiercely reject the need for any such development. We therefore have to move to an assessment of the wider conceptions of reasonable evidence and of human agency, that is, of substantial parts of our worldviews. Diamond’s point is that this is not impossible. We can assess such conceptions in a number of ways; we can consider which conception is the simpler one or which one shows endurance; or we can consider how a conception – for example a conception of human agency – may be explained by other phenomenon, such as that of the projecting one’s own fears onto others, or we can argue the one such conception is fundamentally unjust (Diamond 2012: 137 and 124, respectively). That is, we can have a rational discussion about the virtues and vices of the different conceptions, and those reasons we find convincing, those reasons we accept, depend not just on what we find is real, but also on what we value, what we want to be able do and what practices we want to engage in.30 Does Diamond’s Anscombian reading of Wittgenstein thus collapse into relativism or not? Diamond’s answer is twofold. One the one hand, she insists that

30 I have elsewhere argued for a similar view of the evaluation of different world-views, even if I to a greater extent than Diamond see such evaluations as less a matter of right and wrong, and to a larger degree a matter of value. That is, I argue that a critical investigation of a Weltbild is also lead by the question of whether this particular Weltbild “allows us to live in ways, we find valuable” (Christensen 2011: 159).



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a Wittgensteinian perspective will teach us that fundamental discussions of the real – of the reality of witchcraft for example – arise because our understanding of others and the world is embedded in world-views that are relative, offering us different ways of distinguishing the real; a form of local relativism. On the other hand, she insists that we, as long as we accept and strive to hold on to an awareness of the difference between the world-views involved, can engage in discussions that allow for rational evaluations of wide parts of these world-views. That is, Diamond insists that in such conflicts, world-views can be made the object of rational assessment based on general, human concerns about what is real, what knowledge is, what a human is, what a good life is, and about justice.31 Such concerns or concepts do not carry with them independent standards of rationality, but they provide a frame in which we develop such standards in our “articulation of thought about conflicting worldviews” (Diamond 2012: 129).

6 B  eing a Philosopher Versus Being a Human Being What Diamond offers is a reconstruction of the layout of the discussions that arise when two world-views meet, a reconstruction that deflects the charge of comprehensive relativism and introduces the possibility of rational assessment of world-views. This reconstruction seems to be fully compatible with Wittgenstein’s conception of the role of our Weltanschauungs as presented in the remarks on Frazer – except maybe for one point. Wittgenstein here actually insists that the difference between the person who believes in witchcraft, and the person who rejects it, is not primarily a disagreement about facts. In contrast, it is disagreement about how facts are ordered, about how they go together. That is, the two are primarily disagreeing about whether the lightening (the existence of which the two can agree upon) should be connected to the chanting of the witch or to other natural phenomena (the existence of which they can also agree upon). Such disagreement concerns the “arrangement of” factual content, “the relat-

31 One could be tempted to compare this to Putnam’s famous distinction between concepts and conceptions in his rejection of the incommensurability thesis (Putnam 1981: 114–119). This would however be highly misleading in so far as Putnam describes the difference between two conceptions as the difference between two set of beliefs. The question Diamond is addressing in looking at world-views is more fundamental and concerns the difference between two different frames of reference or standards settling what can even count as a belief.

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edness of the facts” (RFGB: 133), or, in short, their different Weltanschauungs. This means that Wittgenstein’s answer to the charge of relativism – at least in the Frazer remarks – differs slightly from Diamond’s, as he would say that we really do not have fundamental disagreements about the real, only about how the real is ordered. Wittgenstein also raises a concern, not explicitly discussed by Diamond, about the nature of our assessment of possible world-views. Wittgenstein here stresses that even if it is possible to offer reasons in favour of particular worldviews, and even if such reasons may be rational, they are not philosophical reasons. In philosophy, we can show how world-views are at play in any understanding of other human beings and of the real, and we can discuss – Wittgenstein does indeed discuss – whether a Weltanschauung is barren or fertile with regard to philosophical understanding. However, the question of the best worldview is not one for philosophy to settle: One could say that ‘every view has its charm’, but that would be false. The correct thing is to say that every view is significant for the one who sees it as significant (but that does not mean, sees it as other than it is). Indeed, in this sense, every view is equally significant. (RFGB: 135)

The philosopher’s role is to describe the shape and influence of our world-views, but on philosophical grounds none is more or less right, here “every view is equally significant”. If we are trying to assess whether a world-view is one which we could want to adopt, we can, as Diamond shows, do so from many different perspectives; we can evaluate instrumentally, ethically, scientifically, religiously, etc., but not philosophically. The question of the best world-view is not a philosophical question, because this question is one that we have to answer as humans who have to live within a particular world-view. It is a question of what world-view we could want to inhabit as rational, acting, ethical beings.32 If we return to the activity of doing philosophy, the task is different. Here we do not work to find a world-view to inhabit, but almost contrary to this, we attempt to lift the pressure that our world-view exerts on us. This involves of course the simple acknowledgement that we as philosophers also have a world-view, and that this world-view is not transparent to us; it is not open to view. Thus, philosophical understanding of others requires a particular kind of work, an effort to understand the particularities of our way of seeing things, of our own world-view; an effort consisting in a rather mundane, but thoroughly complicated investiga-

32 Cf. PPO: 83.



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tion of the particularities of the time and culture in which we are embedded, of our view of human agency and of evidence, for example. Moreover, as philosophers we should always consider our view of the world and our understanding of others with a certain amount of suspicion, because we can never rest assured that we have a full understanding of the workings of our own world-view. That is, we will have to “plunge into the water of doubt again and again” (RFGB: 118), as Wittgenstein notes at the very beginning of the Frazer remarks. Wittgenstein thus distinguishes between a general understanding of Weltanschauung and the role that it plays for our understanding on the one hand, and the investigation of particular Weltanschauungs on the other; for example the philosopher’s ongoing scrutiny of his own Weltanschauung. We find examples of the second form of investigation throughout Wittgenstein’s writings, especially in the form of reflections on the culture of his time and his relationship to this culture. In the Frazer remarks, general and concrete reflections appear side by side, but in Philosophical Investigations, we find only the investigations of the more general kind. This seems to indicate that Wittgenstein was indeed aware of the difference between these two forms of investigation; and that he, at some point in his later writings, began to meticulously separate the general and the concrete investigations of world-views, and systematically removed the latter from the texts that he intended for publishing. There are at least two possible reasons for this strategy. One possible reason is that Wittgenstein came to think that concrete investigation of world-views were not a subject for philosophy, a line of interpretation that, at least with regard to his reflections on ethics, is not uncommon.33 It does however square badly with the fact that in the Frazer remarks – and in the Nachlass in general – we find such investigations side by side with and integrated into investigations that Wittgenstein would clearly regard to be philosophical in nature. Another possible reason for Wittgenstein’s separation of general and concrete investigations can draw on a suggestion from Josef Rothhaupt, namely that Wittgenstein, after the Frazer remarks, began to differentiate between two different ‘works’ or oeuvres, one intended for publishing, and one devoted to cultural and ethical investigations, not intended for publishing. The first work is presented for example in the Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty, the other for example in Wittgenstein’s prefaces, in the Frazer remarks, in what is now known as the Denkbewegungen (PPO) and in the coded remarks of the Nachlass.34

33 See e.g. Richter 1996. 34 This suggestion was presented by Rothhaupt at the seminar Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough: The Text and the Matter held at University of Aarhus on 4–5 April 2013.

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In conclusion, I will offer a conjecture about why Wittgenstein chose to follow such a strategy. With regard to investigations of particular Weltanschauungs, Wittgenstein’s primary field of investigation is himself, that is, such investigations often concern the world-view and the culture surrounding him as well as his own world-view including his reservations about or even opposition to the dominant culture. That is, they are often investigations of how his particular Weltanschauung shapes and possibly distorts an understanding of a particular question or phenomenon. It may be that Wittgenstein at some point thought it best to leave it up to someone else to decide whether such reflections could be relevant for anyone besides himself and thus chose to separate them from his more general investigations. If this is so, Wittgenstein is uncertain whether anyone could learn anything from the investigation of his particular ‘kind of magic’.35

References Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2011) “What Matters to Us. Wittgenstein’s Weltbild, Rock and Sand, Men and Women”, in: Humana Mente – Journal of Philosophical Studies 18, 141–163. DeSmith, Felicia (2005) “Frazer, Wittgenstein and the Interpretation of Ritual Practice”, in: Macalester Journal of Philosophy 14/1, 59–72. Diamond, Cora (1995) The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Diamond, Cora (2012) “Criticising from ‘Outside’”, in: Philosophical Investigations 36/2, 114–132. Edwards, James C. (1985) Ethics without Philosophy. Wittgenstein and the Moral Life, Tampa: University of South Florida Press. Garver, Newton (1994a) This Complicated Form of Life, Chicago: Open Court. Garver, Newton (1994b) “Naturalism and Transcendentality: The Case of ‘Form of Life’”, in S. Teghrarian (ed.): Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy, Bristol: Thomes Press, 41–69. Gellner, Ernest (1992) Reason and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell. Genova, Judith (1995) Wittgenstein. A Way of Seeing, New York: Routledge. Gier, Nicholas F. (1981) Wittgenstein and Phenomenology. A Comparative Study of the Later Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, New York: State University of New York Press. Miller, John F. (1964) “Wittgenstein’s Weltanschauung”, in: Philosophical Studies 13, 127–140. Naugle, David K. (2002) World-view: The History of a Concept, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing.

35 See also Klagge, section 3 (in this anthology).



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Nyíri J. C. (1981) “Wittgenstein’s Later Work in Relation to Conservatism”, in B. McGuiness (ed.): Wittgenstein and His Times, Oxford: Blackwell, 44–68. Pleasants, Nigel (2010) “Winch and Wittgenstein on Understanding Ourselves Critically: Descriptive not Metaphysical”, in: Inquiry. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 43/3, 289–317. Plessner, Helmuth (1975 [1928]) Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, Berlin: De Gruyter. Putnam, Hilary (1981) Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rhees, Rhus (1971) “Introductory Note”, in: The Human World 3, 18–28. Richter, Duncan (1996) “Nothing to be Said: Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian Ethics”, in: The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34/2, 243–256. Westergaard, Peter (2013) Mennesket er et ceremonielt dyr. Ludwig Wittgensteins bemærkninger om Frazers “Den gyldne gren”, Frederiksberg: Anis. Winch, Peter (1964) “Understanding a Primitive Society”, in: American Philosophical Quarterly 1/4, 307–324. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967) Zettel, Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980) Bemerkungen über Philosophie der Psychologie I / Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology I, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) “Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”, in J. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.): Philosophical Occasions, Indianapolis: Hackett. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998 [1979]) Notebooks 1914–1916, The Collected Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Electronic Edition, Charlottesville, Virginia: InteLex. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998) Culture and Value, revised 2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000) Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001 [1953]) Philosophical Investigations / Philosophische Untersuchungen, Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001 [1981]) Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, third edition, Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2003) Public and Private Occasions, ed. J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2008 [1969]) On Certainty / Über Gewissheit, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

James C. Klagge

Wittgenstein, Frazer, and Temperament Abstract: Focusing on Part I of Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, I examine the opening remarks on Frazer from an editorial standpoint – how the remarks were composed by Wittgenstein and edited by Rush Rhees – and from an interpretive standpoint. What Wittgenstein says in criticism of Frazer, about how to understand the cultures he examines, could also be said by Wittgenstein about how to approach philosophical confusions generally. In both cases the problems are not simply errors, and the solution is not simply a clear statement of the truth. Rather, it is necessary to find a way to dislodge misunderstanding to make a way for understanding. This is a matter of changing the temperament of the reader, and is a challenge that Wittgenstein faced in the Philosophical Investigations, but did not ever solve to his satisfaction.

1 E  diting the Text The remarks by Wittgenstein that constitute Part I of his so-called “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough” were culled by Rush Rhees from a lengthy typescript by Wittgenstein, labeled TS 211, and from a hand-written notebook, labeled MS 110. TS 211 was itself created by Wittgenstein by selecting and reorganizing passages from a series of such hand-written notebooks (MSS 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, and 114).1 While Wittgenstein made comments about Frazer’s writings in notebooks, typescripts and lectures, he never set out to write a “work” on Frazer. However, his comments had sufficient interest and presumably unity that Rhees did create a “work” out of Wittgenstein’s remarks about Frazer.2

1 Labeling of Wittgenstein’s typescripts and manuscripts is due to G. H. von Wright, “The Wittgenstein Papers”, which was originally published in 1969 and was updated by von Wright more than once. The latest version was published in 1993 in Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951 (PO). We added an “Addendum” to this in the same book, pp. 507–510, and a further “2002 Addendum” in Public and Private Occasions (PPO), pp. 407–410. Yet a further addendum is in preparation. In our introduction to “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in PO, p. 115, we mistakenly state that the remarks were taken from TS 221. This was a typographical error, and should read “TS 211” (noticed by Steen Brock). 2 What constitutes a “work” by Wittgenstein has been interestingly discussed by Joachim Schulte in Schulte 2005. I will be discussing only Part I of Rhees’s editing work, and will not be considering Part II or how Parts I and II fit together.

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There are (at least) six published versions of this work: Rhees’s original German edition published in 1967, an English translation by A. C. Miles and Rhees published in 1971, a bi-lingual book edition edited by Rhees and published in 1979, an English translation by John Beversluis published in 1979, a German edition published by J. Schulte in 1989, and a bi-lingual edition published by J. Klagge and A. Nordmann in 1993.3 This would not bear mentioning if it were not that the various editions differ in notable ways. But first, the similarities. The work begins with consecutive passages from nine pages (pp. 313–321) of TS 211 (PO: 118–top paragraph of 132). Then Rhees inserts two paragraphs from earlier in TS 211 (pp. 281–282) before returning to the earlier series (p. 322) for two paragraphs (PO, middle of p. 132). At this point (marked by “ * * * ” in PO: 132) Rhees turns to five paragraphs from even earlier in TS 211 (pp. 250–251) before returning to two later paragraphs (p. 281) in TS 211. That completes the remarks drawn from the typescript. Now (marked by “ * * * ” in PO: 134) Rhees adds remarks from the hand-written manuscript (MS 110) from which the typescript had been drawn: Four paragraphs come from pp. 253–254 and later on p. 255 (PO: 134–136), then Rhees finishes Part I with eight consecutive paragraphs from pp. 297–299. Rhees leaves out one passage from p. 259 of MS 110 in which Frazer is specifically mentioned. Failure to include this fairly obvious passage is neither noted nor explained by Rhees.4 It is not necessary for

3 Original German edition, with an introductory note on the text, published in Synthese, v. 17, 1967, pp. 233–253 (RFGB 1967); English translation, with an extensive introductory discussion of the content, published in The Human World, no. 3, May, 1971, pp. 18–41 (RFGB 1971); Bi-lingual book edition, published by Brynmill Press, 1979 (RFGB 1979a); English translation by Beversluis, published in Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives, ed. C. Luckhardt, Cornell, 1979, pp. 61–81 (RFGB 1979b); German edition published in Wittgenstein: Vortrag über Ethik und andere kleine Schriften, ed. J. Schulte, Suhrkamp, 1989, pp. 29–46 and 141–142 (RFGB 1989); and Bi-lingual edition with an introductory note on the text, published in Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, 1993, pp. 115–155 (RFGB 1993). The last mentioned edition has been improved textually in the 3rd printing issued in 2010. I will use the text of this Philosophical Occasions edition, in its 3rd printing, for my references (abbreviated PO). Note, however, that none of these published editions gives a fully accurate account of the source of the texts in Part I. Perhaps the most accurate edition so far is a recent German-Portuguese edition by João José de Almeida (RFGB 2011). 4 It is included by Wittgenstein in the so-called “Big Typescript” (TS 213) in the chapter on “Philosophy”, (PO: 178/179). I am told a full edition of Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer has been edited afresh (not based on Rhees’s choices) and translated into Polish by Andrzej Orzechowski, under the title Uwagi o “Złotej Gałęzi” Frazera. I have not been able to consult this edition.



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the reader to follow all these transitions, only to know that they exist.5 They indicate the great extent to which this “work” is the construction of an editor.6 Now, the differences. For reasons never explained, Rhees cut out the last six paragraphs of Part I in the 1971 English translation. This cut was maintained in his bi-lingual book edition. The Beversluis translation restores the cut paragraphs. The Schulte edition, while claiming (p. 141) to follow the original 1967 edition, in fact continues the deletion of the six paragraphs. The Klagge and Nordmann edition includes the paragraphs, but marks them in square brackets.7 The deleted paragraphs are textually continuous with the preceding paragraphs in the source manuscript (MS 110: 297–299), topically continuous with the preceding paragraphs, and interesting in their own right. Lacking an explanation from Rhees, it is hard to avoid the thought that Rhees’s deletion was an accidental oversight. Rhees’s editorial work has provided students of Wittgenstein with many worthwhile texts, not the least of which is the text under consideration. They include the Philosophical Remarks, Philosophical Grammar, “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ and ‘Sense Data’”, “The Language of Sense Data and Private Experience”, “Cause and Effect: Intuitive Awareness”, and “Eine Philosophische Betrachtung”. In each case Rhees has found ways to present interesting texts that address salient issues of philosophical interest. He has gotten us to see Wittgenstein as addressing circumscribable topics when there would otherwise only be continuous notebooks of remarks by Wittgenstein that are hard to enter and harder to survey. One might say that Rhees has served us some bite-sized and appetizing pieces of Wittgenstein’s work. This has served the necessary and

5 I would mark them in the text by adding “ * * * ” as follows: on PO: 132/133, insert asterisk breaks after the first paragraph and after the third paragraph; then on PO: 134/135 insert an asterisk break after the first paragraph. The other transitions are already marked by existing asterisk breaks in the text. Rhees included some such breaks himself, even explaining the transition to p. 250 of TS 211 by stating: “The remarks up to this point form the ‘selection’ Wittgenstein had typed as though forming a separate essay. The passages which follow were not included in this, although they come – at various points – in the same large manuscript and in the revision and the typing of it.” (RFGB 1979a: 10e) However, this guidance actually applies even earlier, at the transition to p. 281 of TS 211. And when he moves to the hand-written material from MS 110, this is not indicated by anything more than a sort of asterisk break. Our own introduction to this material (in PO: 115) is no more helpful. 6 This is by no means unique in the published Wittgenstein corpus. The same can be said of Part II of the Philosophical Investigations (now called “Philosophy of Psychology – A Fragment”, in the 2009 4th edition), Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Culture and Value, Remarks on Colour, and On Certainty, not all of which were edited by Rhees. 7 There is a misprint on p. 139 of PO, among these deleted sentences: In the fourth to the last sentence of Part I, “rights” should be “rites” (Riten).

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useful purpose of making parts of Wittgenstein’s work accessible and even popular.8 Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer are certainly among his works most widely read by those outside of philosophy. But many of Rhees’s editing projects have been questioned for their scholarly integrity, often for their seemingly arbitrary and unexplained decisions. The bestknown of these controversies concerns the book Philosophische Grammatik that Rhees edited and published in 1969. In the course of preparing an English translation of this, Anthony Kenny traced the textual sources for this edition in TS 213 and various later revisions by Wittgenstein.9 After examining possible reasons for various editorial choices Rhees made, Kenny comments: “it cannot be said that the published version of the Philosophical Grammar results from any systematic application” of possible criteria. Three chapters from TS 213 are omitted altogether, including a lengthy discussion of the nature of philosophy.10 “Any reader of the Big Typescript cannot help but find it strange that the omission of these important and fascinating chapters from the published Grammatik is not only not justified in the editorial note, but not even mentioned there.” Kenny concludes: “the most prudent editorial policy would have been to print the original Big Typescript as it stood rather than to seek for a definitive revision of it.”11

8 I do not wish to present Rhees as (intentionally) a pandering popularizer. He was very far from that. But his editing work has served to make important chunks of Wittgenstein accessible. Not everyone has found this to be a virtue. Inevitably there is a trade-off between accessibility and scholarship. Denis Paul (in Paul 2007: 17–20) has advocated studying Wittgenstein by reading straight through his manuscript notebooks from the time of his return to Cambridge in 1929. The first ten of these (MSS 105–114) have been published by Michael Nedo as the Wiener Ausgabe, vols. 1–5, Springer, 1994–1999. They have not been translated into English, and it requires the time and commitment of a true scholar to read them. About his own editing, which I discuss further below, Rhees wrote that he wished “to make Wittgenstein’s discussions available in readable form to those who were interested in philosophy … But may it not be that Mr. Rhees [here he refers to himself] did not think of Philosophische Grammatik as a ‘publication for purposes of serious scholarship’?” (Rhees 1996: 56 and 58; italics added). 9 Wittgenstein 1969, including “Anmerkung des Herausgebers”; Wittgenstein 1974; and Kenny 1976: 41–53. 10 This chapter was eventually published by Heikki Nyman as “Philosophie” (1989b); translated by Luckhardt and Aue as “Philosophy” (1991) and included as Chapter 9 in PO in 1993. 11 Quotations from Kenny taken from pp. 47 and 52. TS 213 (the so-called Big Typescript), which formed the starting point for Rhees’s edition, was eventually published in full, though in two somewhat different versions, as Wiener Ausgabe, vol. 11: “The Big Typescript”, ed. M. Nedo (2000); and with English translation as The Big Typescript: TS 213, German-English Scholars’ Edition, eds. and trs. C. Luckhardt and M. Aue (2005). Denis Paul has offered a defense of Rhees’ editing of Philosophische Grammatik in Paul 2009: 284–285.



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In Philosophical Occasions we contributed to the debate over Rhees’s editing by publishing an expanded edition of “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ and ‘Sense Data’”, by reprinting the missing “Philosophy” chapter from the Big Typescript, and by calling Rhees’s editorial posture “almost authorial”.12 In a letter written in 1977 Rhees responded to criticisms of his editing by invoking the charge he and the other executors received from Wittgenstein in his Will: “I intend and desire that Mr Rhees, Miss Anscombe and Professor von Wright shall publish as many of my unpublished writings as they think fit …” He explained that what he saw “fit” required him to exercise his judgement, which he did as follows: “In any editing I have done I have asked again and again what Wittgenstein would have wanted. This has guided me in what I have decided to leave out and in what I have decided to include.”13 He has, in essence, assumed an almost authorial editorial policy. And he based this on not only Wittgenstein’s own trust, but on the experiences that led to that trust. He had known Wittgenstein for some time (I knew him pretty well for 15 years) and having been with him while he was working on and revising his manuscripts – having seen him cut out certain things (sometimes to my bewilderment) and change the order of passages … remembering especially the reasons he often did give for cutting out, revising and shortening … so

12 “Editorial Preface”, PO: ix. The expanded edition of “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ and ‘Sense Data’” was edited by David Stern. In an appendix to the volume, “Additions and Corrections to the Texts”, we indicated (PO: 512–514) all the additions that were made to Rhees’s published edition (amounting to some 30%). In our own editing of Rhees’s lecture notes, “The Language of Sense Data and Private Experience”, we noted (p. 289) that Rhees had place three of the lectures out of order. In an unpublished letter to G. H. von Wright (23 January 1977) concerning the “Notes for Lectures …”, Rhees wrote: “Where I have left out remarks, it is for the reasons I stated at the foot of page 274; and please note the phrase ‘particularly in the first part’. I may have selected wrongly. But on the matter of making any selection at all, I am unrepentant. I will discuss this further with you, if you like. I am confirmed in my view by the attitude of Oxford scholars, for whom the writings of Wittgenstein ‘or any other dead philosopher’ should be studied as they study the Dead Sea Scrolls. (But I hope that those scholars who do study the Scrolls are not quite so ignorant or such charlatans.)” In the passage referred to Rhees had written: “All that is printed here is a collection of rough notes or memoranda which Wittgenstein made for his own use. He would never have published them – he would not even have had them typed – without revising and rearranging them … I have left out certain remarks, particularly in the first part. These are: (a) earlier versions of what is much better said later on in these notes; (b) jottings which are too sketchy to be intelligible; and (c) some remarks which do not seem closely connected with the main discussions” (Rhees 1968: 274). 13 Rhees 1996: 56. In his preface to the published letter D. Z. Phillips does not indicate to whom this letter of 2 March 1977 was addressed. Presumably it was addressed to Phillips himself.

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that I could see something of the same way of working and the same standards in some of the crossings out and revisions in the manuscripts.14

Here, in defense of his authorial editing, Rhees calls on what Wittgenstein had once termed “imponderable evidence”. Wittgenstein writes: “I tell someone that I have reasons for this claim or proofs of it, but that they are ‘imponderable’.” There are certainly spheres in which this is appropriate. Well, for instance, I have seen the look which one person has given another. I say ‘If you had seen it you would have said the same thing’ … An important factor here is that we learn certain things only through long experience and not from a course in school. How, for instance, does one develop the eye of a connoisseur? … A connoisseur couldn’t make himself understood to a jury, for instance. That is, they would understand his statement, but not his reasons. He can give intimations to another connoisseur, and the latter will understand them.15

Unfortunately this leaves Rhees making the circular claim that connoisseurs will agree with him, because those who do not agree with his judgements are, by definition, not connoisseurs.16 The fact that Wittgenstein’s “executors” (those named in his will) exercised iron control over his papers until they were microfilmed in 1967, and considerable control even after that, fueled suspicion that they wanted their claims to special insight to be untested. This is the kind of thing that gave the “executors” a bad name. Jaakko Hintikka articulated this concern in 1991: … an unhealthy climate has been created among those who are aware of the importance of the Nachlaß but are without easy access to [it] … some of the very same persons responsible for the editing of Wittgenstein have also been engaged in interpreting his philosophy. They have therefore placed themselves in the precarious position of being in control of other scholars’ access to materials in the light of which their own interpretations are to be judged and which could conceivably prove some of these interpretations wrong. For their own sake, it is to be hoped that the present untenable situation will soon be resolved so as to clear up unnecessary suspicions and rumors of their motivation and comportment.17

14 Rhees 1996: 57. 15 Wittgenstein 1982: §§923, 925, 927. 16 Perhaps the most egregious example of Rhees’s editing is his attaching a “Foreword” to Wittgenstein’s Philosophische Bemerkungen, ed. R. Rhees (Wittgenstein 1964, Wittgenstein 1975). While it is clear that the attached passage was meant as a Foreword for some work, Josef Rothhaupt has shown conclusively that it was not meant for that work, but for another work that Wittgenstein projected but never collated, which Rothhaupt calls the “Kringel-Buch” (Rothhaupt 2010: 54–59). While only a single example, this casts additional doubt on Rhees’s authorial judgement. 17 Hintikka 1991: 198–199.



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The “untenable situation” was finally resolved by the release in 2000 of the CD-ROM of Wittgenstein’s papers in facsimile with diplomatic and normalized text transcriptions, known as the Bergen Electronic Edition. But, as Rhees said, his editing was only an attempt to mimic the sort of editing that Wittgenstein himself often did. Wittgenstein created TS 211 from his hand-written manuscripts, and the process is itself instructive in his handling of passages relevant to our discussion. If we take the sentence “Frazer’s account of the magical and religious views of mankind is unsatisfactory …”18 to be the beginning of the “core” of Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer, we can see that Wittgenstein decided that the five sentences that had led up to this sentence in the manuscript should be deleted. He marked the five sentences in the manuscript with “∫” for “schlecht” or “bad”. These are, nonetheless, commonly included in the editors’ prefaces to publications of Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer.19 Instead, in the typescript, Wittgenstein took five sentences that had been composed earlier in the manuscript, reordered them, and placed them before the sentence in question, constituting a sort of introduction to his core remarks on Frazer: “One must start out …”20 But let us begin by examining Wittgenstein’s core remarks.

2 E  rror and Satisfaction Wittgenstein begins by saying: “Frazer’s account of the magical and religious views of mankind is unsatisfactory: it makes these views look like errors [Irrtümer].” In fact, Frazer specifically talks of “our predecessors … and … their errors”. And he characterizes these errors as being “hypotheses … which a fuller experience has proved to be inadequate”.21 While Frazer talked mainly about ancient or so-called primitive practices, his discussion was applicable to any religious practices, and Wittgenstein took the discussion this way: “The religious actions, or religious life,

18 PO: 118/119, 5th paragraph (=MS 110: 178 = TS 211: 313). 19 Only in Beverlsuis’s translation (RF 1979b) are they not given or mentioned. 20 The newly affixed sentences come from MS 110: 58 and 63 (Wittgenstein 1994–1999, vol. 3: 193 and 195). They had been composed on 10 February 1931, while the core remarks on Frazer were composed beginning on 19 June. 21 The Golden Bough, One Volume Abridged Edition (GB: 264). Passage quoted in PO: 120–121. Frazer does not fault “our predecessors” for these errors. In fact he recommends that “we shall do well to look with leniency upon” them, just as “we ourselves may one day stand in need of” such leniency from future generations. But Wittgenstein takes this to be a sort of false humility and he takes it to be a misdiagnosis of the situation.

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of the priest-king are no different in kind from any genuinely religious action of today, for example, a confession of sins.”22 For Wittgenstein, what is at stake is the nature and status of religious belief and practices generally: Are they such as to be vulnerable to modern scientific discoveries, as Frazer seems to suppose, or do they have a dignity and worth that is independent of modern scientific discoveries? Without himself espousing religious beliefs here or engaging in religious practices, Wittgenstein nonetheless endorses their dignity and independence from science. Wittgenstein offers a test for whether a religious practice, or indeed any practice, is predicated on something that could turn out to be erroneous: It can indeed happen, and often does today, that a person will give up a practice after he has recognized an error on which it was based. But this happens only when calling someone’s attention to his error is enough to turn him from his old way of behaving.23

Since he claims this can and often does happen today, it will be useful to describe some such cases for ourselves, to see how this test works. While Wittgenstein has not said what he means by a “practice”, I think the following cases might qualify: (A) Inflicting capital punishment for certain kinds of murder (B) Shaming obese people (C) Eating meat (D) Giving IQ tests. The reader might offer other examples, or may analyze these cases differently. The question is whether we can find a factual claim that underlies each practice (“on which it was based”) that might turn out to be false, and whether the discovery and acknowledgement of such an error would lead to a change or rejection of the practice (“turn him from his old way of behaving”). In each case a factual claim that might be thought to underlie the practice could be: (A’) Capital punishment (significantly) deters future murders (B’) Obese people can control their weight by choosing to eat less, or healthier, food (C’) Eating meat is necessary for a healthy diet (D’) There is a (strong) correlation between IQ tests and performance in other ways.

22 PO: 123. While Frazer originally included discussion of Christianity among the religious practices, in the third edition he moved this discussion to a speculative appendix, and he excluded it from the abridged edition. 23 PO: 121.



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We can certainly imagine cases in which the practice (or a particular person’s engagement in the practice) in question is based on the truth of the factual claim offered. It will inevitably be difficult to determine whether the practice is always and only based on the offered claim. But, assuming these claims do underlie the practices, then the question is: What would happen if a practitioner were to learn that the claim was false? Would this be enough to lead to the rejection (or modification) of the practice? If so, then we could say that the practice had been predicated on an error (that the practitioner was “in error”), and that the practice (erroneous or not) could be “interpreted scientifically”.24 In each case this question must be settled on an individual basis: What would it take for a given person (or set of people) to give up or modify a practice? In the case of capital punishment, the practice might well continue if there were additional independent reasons for it, such as retribution. A given person might well continue eating meat if that person considered meat to be especially tasty. Perhaps most practices that we are familiar with are supported by multiple reasons, so that there is not some single or easily isolated basis for the practice. But, and this is the relevant scenario, if there are cases where the practice is thereby given up or modified, then we can say that the practice was vulnerable to “the facts” and potentially erroneous. Clearly there are cases that fit this description.25 If the practice withstands the acknowledged refutation of the underlying claim, then either there is another underlying claim, or the practice is not vulnerable to the facts and is not the sort of thing that can be called an error (as practiced by that person or set of persons). If we suspect there is another underlying claim, then we can repeat the process. In principle, this process of isolating grounds and then imagining them to be false can ultimately determine if a practice is empirically vulnerable. In practice, it is unlikely we will be able to assert that we know all the potential underlying claims. After setting out this test, Wittgenstein claims: “But this is not the case with the religious practices of a people and therefore there is no question of an error.”26

24 “An error arises only when magic [or another practice] is interpreted scientifically” (PO: 125). Wittgenstein admits there can be such cases, only they wouldn’t then be magical practices: “Operations which depend on a false, overly simple idea of things and processes are to be distinguished from magical operations” (PO: 125). 25 In notes from a lecture that Wittgenstein gave (5 May 1933) on Frazer in Easter Term of 1933 (nearly two years later), according to G. E. Moore (cf. Moore 1993: 106) Wittgenstein said: “only in some cases do they thus entertain a false scientific belief.” 26 PO: 121. Miles and Rhees translate the last clause as: “and what we have here is not an error”.

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In light of his proposed test, this amounts to the claim that there is no set of empirically testable claims that are such that if they were all shown to be false, then the practitioner would give up the religious practice. Frazer supposes that there are such empirically testable claims such that if the religious practitioner knew they were false, the practitioner would give up the practice, and that the practitioner simply did/does not realize the falsity.27 This is what leads Wittgenstein to pretend that Frazer would call these practices “sheer stupidity”.28 It is Frazer’s condescending tone that most irks Wittgenstein. But where Frazer goes wrong, according to Wittgenstein, is in his supposition that there must be an underlying basis, an explanation, for religious practices: “The very idea of wanting to explain a practice – for example, the killing of the priest-king – seems to me wrong [verfehlt].” And: “I believe that the attempt to explain is already therefore wrong [verfehlt] …”29 Wittgenstein attributes this desire for an explanation to the kind of “people who think as [Frazer] does”, and what he calls “a tendency in ourselves”.30 Whether or how Wittgenstein thinks we can change this tendency is a question we will return to below. In place of offering an explanation of religious practices, what Wittgenstein proposes is that we simply describe them, for explanation “is only one way of assembling the data – of their synopsis. It is just as possible to see the data in their relation to one another and embrace them in a general picture …”31 And in Wittgenstein’s typescript this leads to mention of the now-famous notion of a perspicuous representation [übersichtlichen Darstellung].32 This, he thinks, can be an

27 GB: 264 (PO: 120): “… their errors were … simply hypotheses … which a fuller experience has proved to be inadequate.” 28 PO: 119: “pieces of stupidity” and “sheer stupidity”. Frazer does refer (GB: 264; PO: 120–121) to the “opinions and practices of ruder ages and races”, which leads Wittgenstein to object: “No opinion serves as the foundation for a religious symbol” (PO: 123); “… ritualistic action is not at all a view, an opinion, whether true or false …” (PO: 129); and “… primitive man … does not act from opinions (contrary to Frazer)” (PO: 137). 29 PO: 119 and 121. 30 PO: 119 and 127. In notes from the lectures that Wittgenstein gave on Frazer in Easter Term of 1933, according to G. E. Moore (9 May 1933, Moore 1993: 106) Wittgenstein “said that the tendency to suppose that there was ‘one motive which is the motive’ was ‘enormously strong’ …” In Alice Ambrose’s notes of the same lecture, we find the very same words: “This tendency is enormously strong” (Ambrose 1979: 33). What, in this lecture, Wittgenstein is calling the “motive” seems to be analogous to what, in the written remarks, he calls the explanation. 31 PO: 131. 32 PO: 133. Rhees’s editing then interrupts the order of the typescript by introducing two remarks from fifty pages earlier in the typescript that elaborate this notion. But their introduction here is justified by the fact that in the manuscript (MS 110: 256–257, Wittgenstein 1994–1999,



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adequate substitute for explanation: “… one must only correctly piece together what one knows, without adding anything, and the satisfaction being sought through the explanation follows of itself … Here one can only describe …”33 We might even say that this perspicuous representation is itself a sort of explanation (though not a historical or causal explanation). In this (minimal) sense “this is precisely the explanation wished for; that is, the explanation which resolves this particular difficulty”.34 Simply bringing things into connection with one another provides “of itself” “the satisfaction being sought”. One might wonder whether Wittgenstein is right that “the satisfaction being sought through the explanation follows of itself” from a perspicuous representation. He has acknowledged that the desire for something more, for a causal or developmental explanation, is a “tendency in ourselves”35 and in “people who think as [Frazer] does”. So it seems that such people (including “us”) will in fact not likely find the satisfaction that Wittgenstein himself claims to find. It may well be “wrong [verfehlt]” of us to want more, but it does not follow that we thereby stop wanting more. The issue here is really a non-cognitive, temperamental one: What can we be satisfied with? And, could Wittgenstein influence what it takes to satisfy us?

3 W  ittgenstein’s Introduction The five sentences that stand at the beginning of Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer (as edited by Rhees) were placed there by Wittgenstein. The first four can be seen as an overview of how to address the problems just raised in this paper, that are to follow in Wittgenstein’s typescript:

vol. 3: 306–307) they follow continuously. These remarks later become the core of PI §122. Credit is due to Baker and Hacker for first emphasizing the importance of this concept, in Baker and Hacker 1980: 531–545. 33 PO: 121. 34 PO: 139. This comes from the final sentences in Part I that were deleted by Rhees in 1971 and thereafter. It is possible that Wittgenstein’s extended use of “explanation” here to cover even a perspicuous representation seemed to Rhees, on reflection, to be misguided. (So, perhaps Rhees purposely and for this reason deleted these lines.) On the other hand, one is tempted to invoke Wittgenstein’s remark (PI §79): “Say what you please, so long as it does not prevent you from seeing how things are.” Wittgenstein’s point is that the perspicuous representation provides what is “wished for” and “resolves this particular difficulty”. 35 And in the lecture cited above in note 30 he called this tendency “enormously strong”.

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One must start out with error [Irrtum] and convert [überführen] it into truth. That is, one must reveal the source of error, otherwise hearing the truth won’t do any good. The truth cannot force its way in when something else is occupying its place. To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path [Weg] from error to truth.

I believe these sentences characterize roughly the situation described in the previous section of this paper and in Wittgenstein’s core remarks on Frazer, as follows: Frazer and those like him are in “error” because they ask too much by insisting on an explanation (or, on a causal explanation). The “truth” is that a perspicuous representation of the practice and its surroundings is satisfactory. But hearing this truth will not do any good if one already has these erroneous expectations. To convince Frazer and those like him of this truth, it is not enough to state it. One must find a path – a way to get – from the erroneous expectations to a place where one can be satisfied with a description. One must find a way to convert Frazer and those like him to a different way of thinking. Wittgenstein offers no path – no answer – here. But that is not surprising, since this is a problem he struggled with for many years thereafter. What is noteworthy is that he was able to formulate the problem in this way at this point. The problem is not one of stating the truth, but one of converting the misguided. I have argued elsewhere that it was roughly during 1931 that Wittgenstein began to appreciate the need to address those with a temperament different from his own.36 While the problem Wittgenstein is trying to formulate here is a real one, his formulation is problematic in this context. In particular, his use here of the word “Irrtum” and its cognates is problematic.37 For in the core remarks, he criticizes Frazer for attributing errors [Irrtümer] to primitive believers. But in the introductory sentences he is not talking about those kinds of errors. In the core remarks Wittgenstein does address the kind of challenge he raises in the introductory sentences, where he calls the attempt to explain religious practices “wrong [verfehlt]”.38 In fact, in some of the manuscript notes that Wittgenstein cut out in cre-

36 Klagge 2013: 57. This paper on Frazer constitutes some of the research I there proposed to do. 37 On this issue, the translation by Miles and Rhees (RFGB 1971 and RFGB 1979a) is a mess. They switch back and forth between “error” and “mistake” for what is consistently the German word “Irrtum” or its cognates. In the first dozen paragraphs they use “mistake” six times and “error” five times. While either of these might be acceptable translations, one or the other should be chosen, and used consistently. 38 PO: 119 and 121. In the first of these occurrences Miles and Rhees translate verfehlt as “wrong-headed”, which I think is apt – it captures the notion of a mind-set.



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ating TS 211, he would talk of a “philosophical mistake [philosophische Fehler]”.39 So he had the terminology at hand, and it would have made more sense to use some cognate of “Fehler” to characterize the misguided, wrong-headed, position Wittgenstein identifies in the introductory sentences. But, furthermore, the contrasting terminology of “truth” is misleading because it is too cognitive for the issue that is raised by the core remarks and in the introductory remarks. If the issue at stake really were (simply) one of truth, then it should be enough to state it, and give ones reasons. But it is clear that this is not enough in the case at hand. And the imagery of struggle, in the introductory sentences, suggests that there is a non-cognitive issue at stake: “The truth cannot force its way in when something else is occupying its place” in the mind-set of the believer. This struggle is clearest in the need to “convert [überführen]” the error into truth. But the situation described pertains more to the holder of the belief than it does to the object of the belief. As Wittgenstein says: “To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough. …” (italics added) So it is not really a matter of converting the error into a truth, but of converting the misguided believer. This would seem to call for something closer to bekehren, which describes a (possibly religious) conversion, or perhaps umwandeln. One wants to find a way for the person to move from one state to the other.40 This issue in the core remarks is how to get Frazer and those who think like him (i.e., us) to be satisfied with a synoptic description of a religious practice rather than seeking a causal explanation. This will require some kind of conversion, for it is a non-cognitive matter of temperament – what will I be satisfied with? In the remarks on Frazer it comes down to this: How can Wittgenstein cure a “narrow spiritual life” that is unable “to conceive of a life different from that of the England of his time”?41 But in many contexts, throughout much of his philosophizing, Wittgenstein became concerned with this kind of challenge – that issues he cared about came down to a matter of temperament … and how

39 MS 110: 193; Wittgenstein 1994–1999, vol. 3: 270. This phrase appeared in a string of eleven manuscript pages that Wittgenstein cut out in creating TS 211, just above the last paragraph on PO: 124/125. 40 PO: 125. Miles and Rhees, in their book edition (RFGB 1979a), render überführen as “transform”. These last three paragraphs show, I think, the challenges of presenting draft material of any kind from Wittgenstein. Regardless of the work of editors, including the editing of Wittgenstein himself, it was unfinished material. Unfortunately, by his standards virtually all of his work was unfinished. Therein lies the dilemma of editing and studying Wittgenstein. 41 PO: 125.

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was he to change people’s temperament? At some points he thought a process of philosophical therapy was called for. At other points he felt philosophy should be written poetically. Finally, in 1947, he threw up his hands in frustration, exclaiming: “Quite different artillery is needed here from anything I am in a position to muster.”42 But the remarks on Frazer provided one of the first contexts in which Wittgenstein came to see his philosophical challenges in this way. Perhaps it was prophetic, then, that the last of the five introductory sentences is: “I must plunge into the water of doubt again and again.” For Wittgenstein never did find a satisfactory way of bringing about the conversion that he sought.43

References Ambrose, Alice (1979) Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge, 1932–1935, Rowman and Littlefield. Baker, Gordon/Hacker, P. M. S. (1980) Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, vol. 1, Blackwell. Fischer, Eugen (2011) Philosophical Delusion and Its Therapy: Outline of a Philosophical Revolution, Routledge. Frazer, Sir James (1922) The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. One Volume Abridged Edition, Macmillan. Hintikka, Jaakko (1991) “An Impatient Man and His Papers”, in: Synthese 87/2, 183–201. Kenny, Anthony (1976) “From the Big Typescript to the Philosophical Grammar”, in: J. Hintikka (ed.): Essays on Wittgenstein in Honour of G. H. von Wright (= Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol. 28, nos. 1–3), 41–53. Klagge, James C. (2003) “2002 Addendum”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, Rowman and Littlefield. Klagge, James C. (2011) Wittgenstein in Exile, MIT Press. Klagge, James C. (2013) “Wittgenstein and His Audience: Esotericist or Evangelist?”, in: N. Venturinha (ed.): The Textual Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Routledge, 52–64. Klagge, James C./Ott, Walter (2014) “Review of Eugen Fischer, Philosophical Delusion and Its Therapy”, in: British Wittgenstein Society BookNOTES, posted January.

42 Culture and Value, Wittgenstein 1980: 62 and 1998a: 71. Wittgenstein’s concern with temperament is one of the main themes of my book Wittgenstein in Exile (Klagge 2011), especially pp. 25–30, 36–39, 126–130, and 145–146. See also Klagge 2013, especially pp. 57–62. Wittgenstein’s therapeutic approach is discussed in Fischer 2011, esp. Chapter 9. My qualms, and some thoughts about a poetic approach to philosophy, are expressed in a review of Fischer’s book (Klagge/Ott 2014). 43 This paper was improved by comments from Lars Albinus, João José R. L. de Almeida, Mauro Engelmann, Christian Erbacher, Heinz Wilhelm Krüger, Jakub Mácha, and Alfred Nordmann.



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Moore, G. E. (1993) “Wittgenstein’s Lectures: 1930–1933”, in: Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, Hackett. Paul, Denis (2007) Wittgenstein’s Progress: 1929–1951, Publications from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen. Paul, Denis (2009) “Wittgenstein’s Passages”, in: E. Zamuner and D. Levy (eds.): Wittgenstein’s Enduring Arguments, Routledge. Rhees, Rush (1968) “I. Note on the Text”, in: The Philosophical Review 77, 271–275. Rhees, Rush (1996) “On Editing Wittgenstein”, in: Philosophical Investigations 19/1, 55–60. Rothhaupt, Josef (2010) “Wittgenstein at Work: Creation, Selection and Composition of ‘Remarks’”, in N. Venturinho (ed.): Wittgenstein After His Nachlass, Palgrave, 51–63. Schulte, Joachim (2005) “What Is a Work by Wittgenstein?”, in: A. Pichler and S. Säätelä (eds.): Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and His Works (= Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen, no. 17), 356–363. Von Wright, G. H. (1993) “The Wittgenstein Papers”, in: J. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.): Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, Hackett, 480–506. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1964) Philosophische Bemerkungen, ed. Rush Rhees, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967) “Bemerkungen zu Frazers Golden Bough”, in: Synthese 17, 233–253. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969) Philosophische Grammatik, ed. Rush Rhees, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1971) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, tr. A. C. Miles and R. Rhees, in: The Human World 3, 18–41. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974) Philosophical Grammar, ed. Rush Rhees, tr. Anthony Kenny, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1975) Philosophical Remarks, ed. Rush Rhees, tr. R. Hargreaves and R. White, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979a) Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, tr. A. C. Miles and R. Rhees, The Brynmill Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979b) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, tr. J. Beversluis, in: C. G. Luckhardt (ed.): Wittgenstein. Sources and Perspectives, The Harvester Press, 61–81. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980) Culture and Value, ed. G. H. von Wright, tr. Peter Winch, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1982) Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1, ed. G. H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman, tr. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1989a) “Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Vortrag über Ethik und andere kleine Schriften, ed. J. Schulte, Suhrkamp, 29–46 and 141–142. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1989b) “Philosophie”, ed. Heikki Nyman, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 43, 175–203. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1991) “Philosophy”, tr. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue, in: Synthese 87/1, 3–22. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) “Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, Hackett, 115–155. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1994–1999) Wiener Ausgabe vols. 1–5, ed. M. Nedo, Springer. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998a) Culture and Value, ed. G. H. von Wright, revised ed. Alois Pichler, tr. Peter Winch, Revised Edition, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998b) Uwagi o “Złotej Gałęzi” Frazera, ed. and tr. Andrzej Orzechowski, Instytut Kultury.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000) Wiener Ausgabe, vol. 11 “The Big Typescript”, ed. M. Nedo, Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2003) Public and Private Occasions, ed. J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann, Rowman and Littlefield. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2005) The Big Typescript: TS 213, German-English Scholars’ Edition, ed. and tr. C. Luckhardt and M. Aue, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations, Revised 4th Edition, ed. P. M. S. Hacker and J. Schulte, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and J. Schulte, Wiley-Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2010) Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, 3rd printing, Hackett. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2011) Observações Sobre o Ramo Dourado de Frazer, ed. João José de Almeida, Deriva Editores.

Lars Madsen

Explanation and Impression Abstract: In this article I will investigate the connection between the two concepts ‘impression’ and ‘explanation’ in part one of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough. It is my contention that these two concepts are cast as opposites in these remarks and that they thereby reveal an influence from Wittgenstein’s earlier philosophy. This is demonstrated by analyzing and comparing part one with key concepts in the Tractatus and A Lecture on Ethics. If correct, this will show that Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough is a pivotal work in Wittgenstein’s overall philosophical development and must be read as such and not mainly for its anthropological insights.

1 I ntroduction Some texts seem to defy categorization. Constantly, they provoke new interpretations, constantly they branch out to other texts seemingly in random association. Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough (RFGB) is certainly one of those texts, as any of Wittgenstein’s texts allegedly is, but with its two distinct parts written at two distinct points in time and with its subject being well beside Wittgenstein’s core interests, this text is even more so. While its style and manners are clearly Wittgenstein’s, complete with a loose structure, deep ruminations, outbursts and enigmatic emblems for sentences, its philosophical make up is less clear. The text came into being in a tumultuous time in Wittgenstein’s philosophical development and though its two parts were written probably with only a few years between them, they are not as homogeneous as it perhaps appears. In this article I will concentrate on part one, were an influence from the Tractatus (TLP) seems to muddle the formation of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. I hope to show that this actually was the case and, consequently, that despite its anthropological setting and theme, RFGB is philosophical at heart. It must be seen as central to Wittgenstein’s philosophical development and vice versa, that this development must be seen as central to the text. To this end I will focus on two key concepts in RFGB part one, ‘explanation’ and ‘impression’. Near the beginning of the text, Wittgenstein responds to Frazer’s explanations of the rituals surrounding the kingship of Nemi with this poignant remark: Compared with the impression which the thing described makes on us, the explanation is too uncertain. (PO: 123)

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What is this concept of ‘uncertainty’ that Wittgenstein introduces here, and what is ‘impression’ compared with ‘explanation’? Normally, we would say that an ‘uncertain explanation’ is one that either misrepresents facts, presents the wrong facts, restricts itself to certain convenient facts or one that all together lacks a foundation in facts. Or, an ‘uncertain explanation’ is one that makes use of an inadequate explanatory principle either with regard to what it is supposed to explain or with regard to competing and perhaps better founded explanations. If it was Wittgenstein’s business to criticize Frazer’s explanations for being uncertain in this way we should expect his comments to include at least an outline of an alternative explanation of the practices and phenomena at hand, but this does not seem to be the case. Rather than being levelled solely at Frazer’s particular kind of explanation, a kind of ‘intellectualism’, Wittgenstein’s critique is levelled at the idea of an explanation of rituals per se: “The very idea of wanting to explain a practice – for example, the killing of the priest-king – seems wrong to me” (PO: 119; cf. PO 121). Wittgenstein’s antipathy against explanation is obvious. Why, and what he wants instead is not at all clear. Witness, for instance, how the following remarks slip from being puzzling to outright peculiar: But an hypothetical explanation will be of little help to someone, who is upset because of love. – It will not calm him.

And: The crowd of thoughts which cannot come out, because they all want to rush forward and thus get stuck in the exit. (PO: 123)

How are we to interpret such remarks? How do they form a response to Frazer’s explanations? Perhaps the last remark here could be seen in contrast to the opening paragraph of the text, which reads: One must start out with error and convert it into truth. That is, one must reveal the source of error, otherwise hearing the truth won’t do any good. The truth cannot force its way in when something else is occupying its place. To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth. (PO: 119)

If this process, that moves from error to truth in an orderly fashion, is taken as a general characterization of explanation, then it could be said that Frazer attempts to use explanations to tap into magical practices, or into this ‘crowd of thoughts’ as it were, to draw off their rationale in an orderly manner, moving it from (their) error to (his) truth. This is what Wittgenstein claims is mistaken. The voluminous output of these practices clogs the narrow channels of explanation because the



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character of such thoughts, he seems to claim, is exactly that they all rush forward at once and thus obstruct explanation indefinitely; that thoughts belonging to magical and religious attitudes cannot find their articulation because language is inadequate for saying all at once, and that the nature of these attitudes is fundamentally different from that of the explanatory attitude.

2 E  xplanation Wittgenstein continues his elaboration on the notion of explanation: It can indeed happen, and often does today, that a person will give up a practice after he has recognized an error on which it was based. But this happens only when calling someone’s attention to his error is enough to turn him from his way of behaving. But this is not the case with the religious practices of a people and therefore there is no question of an error. (PO: 121)1

Allowing that last statement to be for the moment, it is clear that if seen in isolation Wittgenstein’s notion of explanation is very much like Frazer’s. Indeed, what Wittgenstein calls the realization of error and the before mentioned movement towards truth actually describes central points in Frazer’s theory of magical practices. According to Frazer, these practices were instrumental in character and as such they were attempts to manipulate something or some part of the world. Based on more or less consciously realized principles for ‘associations of ideas’ (GB: 36), Frazer contented that these practices and their underlying principles of thought were left unanalysed by the “primitive magician” making his actions arbitrary with no real effect on the world (GB: 26). He famously concluded that magic was a kind of pre-scientific reasoning that “is necessarily false and barren; for were it ever to become true and fruitful, it would no longer be magic but science” (GB: 46). Despite this categorical disqualification, Frazer did in fact regard magic to be closely related to science since both search “for general rules whereby to turn the order of natural phenomena to [man’s] own advantage” (GB: 46). In Frazer’s

1 Wittgenstein was commenting on the following passage in Frazer’s text: “[…] to our predecessors we are indebted for much of what we thought most our own, and […] their errors were not wilful extravagances or the ravings of insanity, but simply hypotheses, justifiable as such at the time when they were propounded, but which a fuller experience has proved to be inadequate. […] therefore in reviewing the opinions and practices of ruder ages and races we shall do well to look with leniency upon their errors as inevitable slips made in the search for truth” (PO: 120, note 1).

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view, magic and science differ only in the kind of causal relationship they ascribe to nature, and indeed he specifies that “[t]he flaw – and it is a fatal one – of the system [of magic] lies not in its reasoning, but in its premises; in its conception of the nature of life, not in any irrelevancy of the conclusions which it draws from that conception” (GB: 218). Ultimately, Frazer claimed that magic was a kind of illusion that was nevertheless attuned to reality in such a way that errors were difficult to detect. For instance, as Wittgenstein makes reference to, Frazer claimed that “an incantation that is supposed to bring rain certainly seems efficacious sooner or later” (PO: 121) as if these practices were constructed in such a way, that the “response” they elicit from reality would verify the practice and never reveal the error it was built upon. Wittgenstein, however, goes on to say: “But then it is surely remarkable that people don’t realize earlier that sooner or later it’s going to rain anyhow” (PO: 121). What in Frazer’s eyes is the sign of a pre-scientific trial-and-error behaviour that has cornered itself into blindly repeating its own errors, is, in Wittgenstein’s eyes, a sign of a practice that clearly is not explanatory since its practitioner would have long ago discovered its redundancy in that case. Only someone who gives up a practice after becoming aware of its ill-foundation can be said to be in error, claimed Wittgenstein, and when magical and religious practices seems unaffected by having their alleged errors pointed out it must be a sign that they were never meant as explanations. Why then, do people engage in such practices? This seems a harmless and timely question to pose, but for Wittgenstein the question is already in itself deeply connected with the view he is arguing against. By asking it, as Frazer does, he already imposes a certain structure on his subject: Just as the question expects an answer and the explanation expects a reason, the magical incantation, in Frazer’s view, seems to expect the rain. He thinks these practices appear to us as peculiar because we cannot yet explain them, because we have not yet found their reason. While his attempt to familiarize himself with them through the explanation indeed does give him a reason, it is his own, disguised as theirs. Speaking of the practices surrounding the kingship of Nemi, Wittgenstein points to something else: [T]he question ‘why does this happen?’ is properly answered by saying: Because it is dreadful. That is, precisely that which makes this incident strike us as dreadful, magnificent, horrible, tragic, etc., as anything but trivial and insignificant, is also that which has called this incident to life. (PO: 121)

Wittgenstein turns Frazer’s argument on its head. While Frazer sought reason with reason, finding magical thinking to be an underdeveloped version of his own, Wittgenstein now claims that the impression these practices make does not



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stem from a lack of explanation. Rather, something, whatever, initially impressed those who created the practice and this is now amplified and sustained in ceremonial veneration. Crucially, there is not a causal relationship between the impression and the ceremony. It is the way in which the impression is taken up that is of interest, and now this is what strikes Frazer through this very practice. For instance, that death is inevitable and can be said to conquer all has often impressed people and Wittgenstein suggests that the violent ritual of succession that surrounds the kingship of Nemi is nothing else but an expression of this: If a narrator places the priest-king of Nemi and “the majesty of death” side by side, he realizes that they are the same. The life of the priest-king shows what is meant by that phrase. Someone who is affected by the majesty of death can give expression to this through such a life. (PO: 123)

Wittgenstein claims that Frazer attributes the impression that the ceremony makes on him to a lack of explanation and that he thinks it will subside once he can safely accommodate these strange actions within an explanation. Just as he erroneously instils an urge to explain in the people performing the ceremonies he instils an urge in his readers to crave an explanation of the ceremonies: “When Frazer begins by telling us the story of the King of the Wood of Nemi, he does this in a tone which shows that he feels, and wants us to feel, that something strange and dreadful is happening.” (PO: 121) But “[a]ll that Frazer does is to make them [the practices] plausible to people who think as he does. It is very remarkable that in the final analysis all these practices are presented as, so to speak, pieces of stupidity.” (PO: 119) In the end, when Frazer restricts these ceremonial practices to a matter of explanation they will inevitably come out as wrong. But this is due only to Frazer’s misrepresentation of the impression and to his overvaluation of the explanation. Speaking of how fire sometimes becomes part of ceremonial veneration, Wittgenstein asks: How could fire or the similarity of fire to the sun have failed to make an impression on the awakening mind of man? But perhaps not “because he can’t explain it” (the foolish superstition of our time) – for will an ‘explanation’ make it less impressive? (PO: 129)

That Wittgenstein finds the explanation to be no match for the impression is clear by now. The limitation of the explanation is that whatever it is given to it must make compliable with its own scheme of truth and reasons, and it must commend to future explanations what it cannot presently exhaust. Consequentially, for Frazer the impression remains a passing phenomenon, a function of not having an explanation, never a hint of something further.

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3 I mpression Frazer’s inability to appreciate his connectedness to the practices through the impression, is for Wittgenstein a sign of his understanding of these practices being too narrow: One sees how misleading Frazer’s explanations are – I believe – by noting that one could very easily invent primitive practices oneself, and it would be pure luck if they were not actually found somewhere. That is, the principle according to which these practices are arranged is a much more general one than in Frazer’s explanation and it is present in our own minds, so that we ourselves could think up all the possibilities. (PO: 127)

Instead of pinning down the impression with a specific explanation, Wittgenstein argues for a general principle present in everybody and far removed from an urge to explain particular phenomena or circumstances. It is a principle that puts no emphasis on the reasons for the practice, less on its content, and most on a general aspect of the practice. Wittgenstein claims that not only do these different practices show a similarity in their arrangement but he also claims that the principle behind this is part of us all and that every one of us could, in principle, think up a ritual practice that actually could be found to exist somewhere. That we could concoct independently the same ceremony indicates that Wittgenstein at this point takes the characteristic feature of magical and religious practices to be a function of our thinking and symbolism in general and not to be the result of specific, practical circumstances that our thinking is instrumentally applied to, as Frazer would have it. Wittgenstein then goes on to claim that the customs and ceremonies create a certain significance or importance out of something that has impressed its practitioners. Briefly touching upon the theme of piety, he mentions that when Schubert died his brother sent extracts from Schubert’s scores to his favourite pupils as a gesture of piety but, Wittgenstein postulates, he might as well have kept them untouched and hidden out of the same piety. Likewise, Wittgenstein speculates that we could “easily imagine […] that the king of a tribe is kept hidden from everyone, but also that every man in the tribe must see him” (PO: 127). An underlying hypothesis could not accommodate such opposing actions as hiding or showing the king of a tribe, or the keeping or distributing of Schubert’s scores. One hypothesis would be needed for each action. Here Wittgenstein appears to repeat the point regarding the incantations for rain. Had they been motivated by an underlying hypothesis, the practitioners could not have remained indifferent to the fact that the rain would fall regardless of incantations being carried out. In a rather cryptic remark Wittgenstein characterizes this piety by saying it is, “[t]he ceremonial (hot or cold) as opposed to the haphazard (lukewarm)” (PO: 127). His point seems to be that the ceremonial makes something



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significant and important by creating contrasts or absolutes, as opposed to the mixed and relative. If everyone in the tribe must see the king then it “will not be left to happen in some more or less chance manner, but he will be shown to the people” (PO: 127). This ‘ceremonial principle’, as we might call it, is not functionally motivated, say by the need for rain to grow crops. It is motivated by an impression of something, which in fact could be anything: It goes without saying that a man’s shadow, which looks like him, or his mirror-image, the rain, thunderstorms, the phases of the moon, the changing of the seasons, the way in which animals are similar to and different from one another and in relation to man, the phenomena of death, birth, and sexual life, in short, everything we observe around us year in and year out, interconnected in so many different ways, will play a part in his thinking (his philosophy) and in his practices, or is precisely what we really know and find interesting. […] I don’t mean that just fire must make an impression on everyone. Fire no more than any other phenomenon, and one thing will impress this person and another that. For no phenomenon is in itself particularly mysterious, but any of them can become so to us […]. (PO: 127)

The ceremonial principle is the way in which a person or group venerates something that has, for whatever reason, come to impress them. Regardless of what caused the impression or what particular ceremony or ritual it gave rise to, it is the trait of the veneration, that it transforms the impression into something distinct, a ceremony or ritual. But crucially, this making something distinct and significant is not a shaping up of the impression to make it representable. The ceremonial does not signify an opinion and it cannot be true or false. This theme is taken up in various remarks: Burning in effigy. Kissing the picture of one’s beloved. That is obviously not based on the belief that it will have some specific effect on the object which the picture represents. It aims at satisfaction and achieves it. Or rather: it aims at nothing at all; we just behave this way and then we feel satisfied. (PO: 123) The representation of a wish is, eo ipso, the representation of its realization. But magic brings a wish to representation; it expresses a wish. (PO: 125)

If the magical practice represents a wish, and if the wish itself represents that for which it is a wish, then the incantation for rain is not a performance thought to bring rain but ultimately a representation of (the impression of) the rain. To kiss a picture of a loved one is in this sense itself a picture of the possibility of kissing that beloved person. Whereas the explanation is hypothetical in nature (PO: 123) and essentially splits itself off from that which can satisfy its claim, the wish and the magical practice already contain what could satisfy them, Wittgenstein claims. And, whereas the method of explanation is that of a process, going

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through arguments towards its projected truth, magic does not posit anything outside itself. The hypothesis and explanation propose that such and such is the case and can consequently be said to be either true or false. Magical and religious practices are not propositional and therefore cannot be said to be erroneous, or true for that matter. Wittgenstein puts it thus: “No opinion serves as the foundations for a religious symbol. And only an opinion can involve an error.” (PO: 123) There are ways in which Wittgenstein’s argument above can be said to anticipate a theme in his later philosophy that is expressed, for instance, in the passage commonly known as the ‘private language argument’ in Philosophical Investigations (PI). (PI §§243–315) Here Wittgenstein strives to unfetter the meaning of words like ‘pain’ from the idea of a referential relationship between the word and an inner, private state, and instead point to the social anchoring of the meaning of such words. Wittgenstein notes that the pain-behaviour of a child changes as it learns to express its pain in words, but that “the verbal expression of pain replaces crying, it does not describe it” (PI §244). Neither cry nor pain-word is propositional and they are not hypotheses about the pain; they express it. Though being a discussion of the intertwinement of grammar and phenomenology regarding first person expressions, the private language argument deals with the philosophical problems arising from a referential view of meaning. While magical practices and pain-behaviour might seem far apart, Wittgenstein’s expounding of their philosophical characteristics arguably shares the same structure, and when he in PI asks “[h]ow can I even attempt to interpose language between the expression of pain and the pain?” (PI §245) Wittgenstein seems to echo his critique of Frazer who, it could be said, interpolates explanations between the impression (of say fire) and the rite (the Fire Festivals).2 In PI Wittgenstein has sharpened our eyes to the various ways in which we inadvertently seem to think of meaning as rooted in a referential relationship between word and thing, and in RFGB he is sharpening our eyes to the ways Frazer inadvertently ascribes an explanatory principle to magical and religious practices that seems to thrive on the same structural relationship, this time between the magical practice and that, which it seemingly aims to bring about. While such themes from part one of Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough seemingly give a taste of full-bodied later philosophy, residues from Wittgenstein’s

2 Similarily, Wittgenstein could be said to anticipate this theme when he claimed that the phrase ‘the majesty death’ and the priest-king of Nemi is the same, that “[t]he life of the priest-king shows what is meant by that phrase”, and that “[s]omeone who is affected by the majesty of death can give expression to this through such a life. – This, of course, is also no explanation, but merely substitutes one symbol for another. Or: one ceremony for another.” (PO: 123)



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earlier philosophy arguably still surface. This bears witness to the state of flux Wittgenstein’s philosophy was in at the time; new patterns of thoughts take form while old ones linger. Wittgenstein’s critique of the referential notion of meaning so central to his later philosophy pivots on a social conception of meaning that seems weak or even absent in part one of RFGB. For instance, the claim that religious and magical practices are arranged around a principle present in our individual minds, which makes one person capable of inventing a practice by him- or herself, “and it would be pure luck if they were not actually found somewhere” (cf. PO: 127), is strikingly different from formulations in part two where Wittgenstein claims that “[i]f I wanted to make up a festival, it would die out very quickly or be modified in such a manner that it corresponds to a general inclination of the people” (PO: 149). The important difference is that the ritual, ceremony or festival in its conception in part one is independent of the social, whereas, conversely, in part two it is nothing without the social. The ‘general inclination of the people’ in part two could be seen in this connection as a forestalment of the later concept of ‘form-of-life’ in PI and generally speaking, it would not be entirely unfair to conclude that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy has better foothold in part two. Part one is more mixed. In fact, considering the individualistic core of the proposed ceremonial principle and considering the characterization of this principle as dealing in unexplainable absolutes together with the very strict delimitation of explanations, which reduces them to a ‘piecing together of what one knows’, a mere stating the facts (cf. PO: 121), then all of a sudden TLP does not seem far off. It is, however, another text, written only two years before part one of RFGB that reverberates most strongly with these sentiments. As shall be argued below, this is a crucial point in Wittgenstein’s reasoning because it is here he endows his notion of magical and religious practices with philosophical significance.

4 A Lecture on Ethics A Lecture on Ethics (LE) was written in 1929 as a lecture Wittgenstein gave in Cambridge to the Heretics Society in November that year. Taking G. E. Moore’s definition, that “[e]thics is the general enquiry into what is good” (PO: 38) as his starting point, Wittgenstein goes on to distinguish between two senses of ethics, a ‘relative’ and an ‘absolute’ sense. Good in the relative sense is for example when we compare things, like one chair with another. A good chair in the relative sense simply means “that the chair serves a certain predetermined purpose and the word good here has only meaning so far as this purpose has been previously fixed upon” (PO: 38). Consequently, “[e]very judgment of relative value is a mere state-

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ment of facts” (PO: 39); one fact is stated, the goal, then another is stated and compared to the first. Saying that “‘this man is a good runner’ simply means that he runs a certain number of miles in a certain number of minutes” (PO: 39). A similarity between ethical judgments of relative value and explanation in part one of RFGB is showing already since both are said to be statements of facts. The difference between facts and value, or the relative and the absolute, is comparable to the difference between explanation and impression, and as in his remarks on Frazer, Wittgenstein is not content with stating facts only. At the beginning of his lecture, he claims that he uses the term ‘ethics’ in a wider sense than Moore did and he goes on to produce a series of examples designed to bring out what he has in mind, which clearly is something that cannot be stated straightaway: Now instead of saying “Ethics is the enquiry into what is good” I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important, or I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living. I believe if you look at all these phrases you will get a rough idea as to what it is that Ethics is concerned with. (PO: 38)

And further: [T]he absolute good, if it is a describable state of affairs, would be one which everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations, would necessarily bring about or feel guilty for not bringing about.

Immediately Wittgenstein cashes in on his ‘if’ and problematizes this formulation of the absolute good: “I want to say that such a state of affairs is a chimera. No state of affairs has, in itself, what I would like to call the coercive power of an absolute judge.” (PO: 40) The absolute good is not a fact then. The description of a murder, for instance, can be completely void of ethical value and even the description of the “pain or rage caused by this murder […] will simply be [descriptions of] facts, facts, and facts but no Ethics” (PO: 41). Consequently, “no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of absolute value” (PO: 39). Indeed, if we had a complete description of the world, [it] would of course contain all relative judgments of value and all true scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions that can be made. But all the facts described would, as it were, stand on the same level and in the same way all propositions stand on the same level [… and] a state of mind, so far as we mean by that a fact which we can describe, is in no ethical sense good or bad. (PO: 39)

These formulations invoke the treatment of ethics in TLP:



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6.4 All propositions are of equal value. 6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists – and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world. 6.42 So it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics. 6.43 It is impossible to speak of the will so far as it is the subject of ethical attributes. And the will as phenomenon is of interest only to psychology. (TLP 6.4–6.423)

What must be noted immediately about these claims about ethics in TLP is that here ethics is negatively linked to language. What language is and is not is an integral part of what ethics can be. Likewise, it must be noted that the ethical cannot be located as phenomena. It cannot be attributed to the ‘will’ or a ‘state of mind’. The will and the mind cannot have any ethical value as far as they must be regarded as facts. In this sense the ethical and value are not a part of the describable physical world but lie outside it. LE clearly inherited its notion of ethics from TLP and with it the idea that ethics essentially is inexpressible and consequentially, that a science of ethics in the strict sense is impossible: “[i]t seems to me obvious that nothing we could ever think or say should be the thing.” (PO: 40) In TLP the view on ethics is central to Wittgenstein’s overall philosophy at that time: The leading concepts of ‘reality’ and ‘thinking’ pivot on the special conception of language in TLP, and it is a both formidable and restricting conception: Language is pictorial in essence and consists of groups of facts going proxy for other groups of facts by way of projective thinking, all made possible by a common logic. Sense is logically determinate and independent of social agreement. Hence, language can perfectly depict every possible fact in the world. But facts are all it can depict, value lies forever outside its scope. Importantly, logic is not a standard that language or thinking must live up to, it is the common inner form and structure of thinking and the world that language mirrors (cf. TLP 1.13, 3.03). The proposition is the material representation of a thought which in turn is the logical picture of a possible fact (sense) (TLP 3). It is thinking, then, that makes certain facts into pictures. If the proposition does not show a logical picture, it remains a fact among others with no depicting qualities and no sense; it is nonsense (TLP 5.4733). This is not because certain facts defy representation

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but rather because we sometimes fail to provide a logical picture, a thought, in the first place. Thus, the elucidation of nonsense shows that certain facts we have treated as pictures do not ultimately depict any logical form, and as such they do not represent a thought.3 The philosophical significance of nonsense is its transcendental nature. Nonsense is ultimately a reflection of the limits of sense and hence of thinking. In turn this shows the common a priori logical nature of thinking and reality and hence, the very possibility of sense. Presently, the sharp distinction between sense and nonsense of TLP shall be traced in LE and RFGB part one in order to work our way towards a fuller understanding of what ethics is in the lecture and how it can be said to have influenced Wittgenstein’s conception of impression in his remarks on Frazer.

5 O  ppositions While Wittgenstein quickly dismantled his rigorous conception of logic in the short period between LE and RFGB, he arguably still maintained the strong opposition between what can be explained or stated as facts and what cannot, in part one of the latter. While this distinction too is softened by the social conception of meaning in the later philosophy, it is at the time of RFGB part one still a distinct feature of his reasoning and it is typical of Wittgenstein’s argumentation at this point that the concept of ‘impression’ is closely linked to the concept of ‘explanation’ precisely as the concepts of ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ value are closely linked in LE. Not only do they occur mostly together but they also seem to define and delimit each other. It is almost as if stating the facts somehow brings forth what cannot be stated and vice versa, as if drawing attention to what cannot be stated somehow delimits what can. Witness, for instance, how Wittgenstein argues his point against Frazer’s intellectualism by repeatedly saying what the characteristic feature of ritualistic actions is not, without ever stating what it really is: [I]t is nonsense […] to say that the characteristic feature of these actions [i.e. ritualistic actions] is the fact that they arise from faulty views about the physics of things. […] Rather, the characteristic feature of ritualistic action is not at all a view, an opinion, whether true or false (PO: 129).

“Rather” appears to signal a further specification of what ritualistic actions really are if not failed physics, but is followed instead by yet another statement of what

3 Here I am subscribing to the ‘resolute reading’ of the TLP here (Conant/Diamond 2004).



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it is not. In LE the same pattern can be observed. For instance, after having introduced the notion of relative and absolute value, Wittgenstein describes several instances of the former kind, while the latter is only touched upon in a short discussion of the word “ought”. He then continues to say that “the essence of this difference [between judgments of relative and absolute value] seems to be obviously this” (PO: 39), apparently promising further explication of this difference (there is even a colon), but instead he goes on to describe judgments of relative value in even greater detail. On the other hand, in RFGB part one Wittgenstein occasionally draws attention to various cases that he thinks self-evidently disqualify explanations, as when someone is upset by love or affected by the majesty of death (PO: 123) or when Augustine calls “upon God on every page of the Confessions” PO: 119). In effect, the distinctions Wittgenstein set up between the explanation and the impression, between the relative and the absolute, traces a line between two opposites locked in a perfect fit. Now, these oppositions, if they are indeed inspired by TLP, must be of a very particular kind. As already implied above, nonsense in the Tractarian conception is not to be thought of as something on ‘the other side’ of the limits of sense (TLP, Preface). It is the limit of sense, hence the transcendental character of the elucidation of nonsense. Therefore, it is typical of these oppositions that they are tied to language or representation in general. This is at the heart of TLP, it is clear in LE and it is still, as I shall claim, a driving factor in part one of RFGB. However strong or weak the influence from Tractarian logic is in those subsequent works, it is common to them all that the important concepts for Wittgenstein – the mystical in TLP, absolute value in LE and the impression in RFGB – do not function in language the way statements of facts do. In LE Wittgenstein takes up the concept of ‘miracle’ to shed more light on the ‘absolute’. It is not a fact and defies description. Ordinarily the term ‘miracle’ is applied to phenomena that occur outside the normal, something never seen before, Wittgenstein claims. We tend to approach such phenomena by attempting to describe them scientifically and we try to make them fit our normal descriptions of the world. If a man grew a lion’s head and began to roar, as Wittgenstein’s example goes, we would, after our surprise had subsided, investigate the phenomena scientifically in order to find an explanation of it, “and where would the miracle have got to?” Wittgenstein asks and continues: For it is clear that when we look at it in this way everything miraculous has disappeared; unless what we mean by this term is merely that a fact has not yet been explained by science which again means that we have hitherto failed to group this fact with others in a scientific system. (PO: 43)

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In the language of TLP, the miracle breaks the limits of sense and as such it becomes an aspect of the transcendental. To explain it scientifically would annul this aspect. The scientific notion of the miracle as something initially unexplainable is comparable to the way Frazer makes magical practices appear strange and dreadful only to set them up for an explanation that makes them less so, and what is Frazer’s claim that magic is simply failed science, or proto-science at best, but an attempt to familiarize himself with the unfamiliar and to make it congruent with his own way of thinking, ‘to group this fact with others in a scientific system’? Of course, in RFGB as here in LE, Wittgenstein will have none of it: “The truth is that the scientific way of looking at a fact is not the way to look at it as a miracle.” (PO: 43) The explanation of the miracle makes it slip from its absolute sense to its relative sense and thereby lose its miraculous essence, as it were.4 What are the characteristics of the absolute then? One of the central passages in LE sees Wittgenstein trying to lure out why we even want to use the word ‘absolute’, “[w]hat have we in mind and what do we try to express?” (PO: 40) He goes hunting for personal experiences that express this feeling of absolute value: “I believe the best way of describing it is to say that when I have it I wonder at the existence of the world.” (PO: 41) (Note that Wittgenstein grounds his concept in his own individual mind, as he did with the ceremonial principle.) Wittgenstein quickly enjoins that we have to weed out the relative or common-sense meaning of the word ‘wonder’. If I wonder at the size of a dog or the continued existence of an old house I thought demolished long ago then “[i]n every such case I wonder at something being the case which I could imagine it not being the case” (PO: 41). And this is precisely what he cannot do when it comes to wondering at the existence of the world: “it is nonsense to say that I wonder at the existence of the world, because I cannot imagine it not existing.” (PO: 41) These claims are rooted in the principle of the bipolarity of propositions in TLP, which specifies that proposition must be capable of being either true or false and that only a subsequent comparison with reality can show this. (TLP 4.023) The relative judgment of value in LE and the fact-stating core of explanations in RFGB both comply with this principle of bipolarity. What can justify their claims is not itself a part of them. Wittgenstein’s whole critique of Frazer’s claim that the practitioner of magic is in

4 In A Lecture on Ethics, expressions of absolute value seem unstable and constantly on the verge of collapsing into their relative forms, whereas, generally speaking, in Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough Wittgenstein found that comparable types of expressions, the religious and magical expressions, actually had a stable cultural setting, the tribe, the religious community, that made them more robust and enduring. In A Lecture on Ethics Wittgenstein was not interested in the cultural context of such expressions but wanted to, and still believed he could, expound their peculiar logical and philosophical characteristics in isolation.



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error is informed by this distinction: In order for there to be talk of error something must be proposed and as we have seen numerous times by now, it is Wittgenstein’s constant point that there is not. It is not solely the lack of a propositional structure that sets the absolute and the impression apart from the relative and the explanation. Even if ‘to wonder at the existence of the world’ is not itself a statement of facts, it could still be objected that ‘the wonder’ is an experience, a physiological fact occurring in a person and hence a describable fact. This is nonetheless immediately ruled out by Wittgenstein in much the same manner as he in TLP ruled out that the ethical will or the ethical subject should be physical phenomena. Indeed, in LE Wittgenstein completely rejects the idea that judgments of absolute value only seem nonsensical simply because we have yet to find their correct logical analysis, the one that would refer every element of those claims back to a simple representation of facts despite their fantastical appearance. “Now when this [that it nevertheless is so] is urged against me”, he says, I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject every significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance. That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was to just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. (PO: 44)

Statements of absolute value are to be excluded a priori from significant language as pure nonsense. This concept of nonsense is identical to that in TLP and we must return to the concept of ‘limit’ to fully appreciate the implications of what Wittgenstein is saying here.

6 T  he Mystical This is the philosophical core of TLP; that realizing the limits between sense and nonsense in language means realizing the structure and limits of thinking and reality. Importantly, this notion of limits does not imply that there is “something” on the other side of the limit. The proverbial recommendation to leave in silence what cannot be said (TLP 7) does not mean that there is something factually existing that is out of the reach of words. The ineffable is a part of, or an aspect of what can be stated in words, not its own ontological category. Wittgenstein does not simply push ethics, aesthetics and other metaphysical undertakings that all

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strive to ascribe value to the world, into nonsensical oblivion (though the logical positivists thought he did). He delegates them to the transcendental (TLP 6.421) that ultimately shows a concern with that things are not what, how or why they are. In TLP Wittgenstein calls this ‘the mystical’ and specifies that it is a “feeling [of] the world as a limited whole” (TLP 6.44–6.45). It appears to be Wittgenstein’s idea that the mystical focusses all aspects of the transcendental into this feeling of the world as a limited whole, seemingly flickering between a simple ascertainment of all facts on one side and the ultimate meaning of life on the other. Now, the world understood as ‘a limited whole’ is simply the world understood as the totality of all facts, or, as Wittgenstein formulates it in the very first paragraph of TLP: “The world is all that is the case.” (TLP 1) By virtue of the convergence of thinking and reality through a common logical structure, the totality of facts is mirrored in language as the totality of all true propositions (TLP 4.11) and Wittgenstein claims towards the end of TLP that [w]e feel that when all scientific question have been answered, the problem of life remains completely untouched. Of course there are no problems left, and this itself is the answer. The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (TLP 6.52)

This is of course the basis of the sentiment in LE that ethics is no science and that the complete description of the world contains no value (PO: 39), but the decisive move in this last part of TLP is that the possibility of all description, of all propositions, all answers to scientific questions, all statements of facts, is glimpsed when the limits of sense and the workings of logic are realized, and it transmutes the classical metaphysical questions of value and meaning into this mystical feeling of the world as a whole. Everything in TLP is referred back to this experience of the mystical. In LE the expression ‘to wonder at the existence of the world’ concentrates this feeling and by reformulating it Wittgenstein consummates the expression: Now I am tempted to say that the right expression in language for the miracle of the existence of the world, though it is not any proposition in language, is the existence of language itself! (PO: 43f.)

This convergence of language and world, echoed in TLP where the limits of language converges with the limits of the world (TLP 5.6; cf. TLP 6.13, 6.421), is thus typical of these earlier works, as they both aspire to this transcendental and mystical aspect but there is a remarkable difference in the way this is approached. Whereas TLP strips language to its bare, logical structure in order to show the mystical bounds of sense, LE meditates on the experience of absolute value. Wittgenstein ends his lecture by saying:



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My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it. (PO: 44)

This ‘running against the boundaries of language’ is not just a handy metaphor for nonsensical behaviour but represents the wilful way some forms of language wreck propositional sense in a ‘desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life’. Compared to TLP, Wittgenstein appears to have broadened his view of the philosophical analysis and he now thinks in LE that apart from the Tractarian strictures of philosophy that reveal the mystical, there are innumerable ways of relating to this ultimate meaning of life, of running against the boundaries of language. They are all required, however, to give up their ability to propositionally represent reality in order to relate to its transcendental possibility.

7 R  ealizing the Transcendental in Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough Part One The question now arises, how this transcendental aspect is represented in RFGB, part one. By returning to an unresolved issue regarding the previous discussion of Wittgenstein’s remarks on ‘the wish’, we might get closer to an answer. It was perhaps premature to compare Wittgenstein’s notion of the wish with the ideas expressed in the private language argument but ironically, it is another almost identical formulation about the wish in PI that most thoroughly reveals the shortcomings of RFGB part one in this respect. Wittgenstein writes in PI that “[a] wish seems already to know what will or would satisfy it” (PI §437). Compare the already cited remark in RFGB: “The representation of a wish is, eo ipso, the representation of its realization” (PO: 125). While both characterizations agree that the wish represents its fulfilment they differ widely in the use they make of this observation. In RFGB Wittgenstein used this to characterize the difference between the non-propositional magical practice on the one hand and the explanation on the other with its ability and pretention to postulate propositional content, whereas in PI he promptly adds that, like the wish, “a proposition, a thought, [seems already] to know what makes it true – even when there is nothing there!” (PI §437) Therefore, in this later work, the wish is actually employed in a direct attack on the very conception of sense in TLP, which made the distinction between the magical prac-

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tice and the explanation possible in the early remarks on Frazer.5 Of the wish, the proposition, and thought, Wittgenstein asks in PI: “Whence this determining of what is not yet there? This despotic demand? (“the hardness of the logical must”)” (PI §437). It is the whole pictorial relationship between language and reality that comes under fire here and with it the core idea that it specifies a logical identity of thought and fact, projected as sense in the proposition. In other words it is the requirement for sense to be determinate (TLP 2.0211, 3.23, 4.015 ) that is attacked. In PI Wittgenstein makes it the case that this is ultimately not the requirement of sense but rather our unadmitted and despotic demand on thinking and its relation to the world induced by a misunderstanding of the workings of language. This ‘determining of what is not there’ is precisely the ‘determinacy of sense’: The idea that sense must be determinate to be sense at all, and the connected idea that sense determines what must be the case for a proposition to be true is deemed a philosophical illusion in the later philosophy. The idea that there is a special relationship between thinking and the world, essentially free of the social and which ultimately makes sense possible and also specifies what it is, is constantly criticized. Indeed, the private language argument could also be read as an attack on the final bastion of unadulterated, logical sense, the private mind. And while the general anthropological focus RFGB might actually have played a part in Wittgenstein’s final abandonment of logical atomism in favour of his pragmatic philosophy that anchors sense to the social it is arguably still in its tentative beginnings, in part one. Here the various forms of expressions, the explanation, the wish, the magical practice and so on, still stand exposed in their relation to reality without their future social clothing, still judged by their propositional capabilities or lack thereof. Some are statements of facts others are expressions of absolute value. The ceremonial principle was ultimately an individualistic principle only coloured by the social in its actual, historical expression. It is first and foremost a relationship between a subject and reality, between a mind and what has

5 That Wittgenstein in this way retains the wish as phenomenon but changes its philosophical function completely is perhaps puzzling, however not unique. For instance, the notion of ‘family-resemblance’ is used in Philosophical Investigations to destabilize the idea of an essence of meaning (PI §67), whereas in A Lecture on Ethics Wittgenstein seems to make use of a similar notion but with the opposite effect in mind, namely to make his listeners grasp the essence of his many examples: “And to make you see as clearly as possible what I take to be the subject matter of Ethics I will put before you a number of more or less synonymous expressions each of which could be substituted for the above definition, and by enumerating them I want to produce the same sort of effect which Galton produced when he took a number of photos of different faces on the same photographic plate in order to get the picture of the typical features they all had in common.” (PO: 38)



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impressed it. The distinguishing feature of the ceremonial, however, is its ability to create importance making something stand out. In other words, it makes its object anything else than accidental, and hence non-propositional. What the ceremonial principle takes as its object is coincidental, but once brought into the ceremonial it is elevated to an absolute degree of importance, and by being non-propositional it taps into the sphere of the non-accidental and transcendental. As we already saw, in TLP Wittgenstein lets the distinction between sense and nonsense drive the distinction between the accidental and the non-accidental. Everything pertaining to value is delegated to the non-accidental. Ethics, the problem of life, aesthetics, and so on, was all to be a part of this transcendental spectrum of the non-accidental. LE insistently thrived on this distinction and in part one of RFGB the ceremonial principle does too and creates importance out of the accidental by making it non-accidental. For instance, the death of Schubert could be described as purely factual with no regard to the value of his life and work. He lived, he died. Such and such was the case, now it is no longer the case. Likewise, the king of a tribe is but a man, a physiological fact among other facts. But the ceremonial principle gives these facts significance and importance by creating absolutes. Either Schubert’s music must ostensibly be given to his students or it must resolutely be kept away. Either the king must be completely hidden or he must be clearly shown. Importantly, it is the manner in which this is expressed that creates the absolute character of the ceremonial, not what is expressed. In this regard it is significant that when Wittgenstein, as cited above, speaks of the many things which can make an impression on man and which can be turned into ceremonies and practices they will play a part not only in these practices but also “in his thinking (his philosophy)”. (PO: 127) Could this ‘philosophy’ be their engagement with the “the problem of life” or “the ultimate meaning of life” as the transcendental is formulated in TLP and LE? Do these religious and magical practices not almost deliberately abstain from proposing anything in order to be free to ‘run against the limits of language’? Do they not call for all thoughts occasioned by a certain impression to rush to their expression all at once, well aware that they will all be stuck in the exit and never pass as sense? In the words of TLP, it may be said that the ceremonial principle pushes the meaning of whatever phenomena that has made an impression to its ultimate limit, into the non-accidental and non-propositional and into the transcendental. And it is this urge to ‘run against our walls’ we recognize and become impressed by in these practices, not their alleged explanation of their object. Indeed, they are ultimately nonsense, and this is precisely what Frazer patently misses with his explanations since they split the impression from the expression in the attempt to make sense of it. He never discovers the transcendental aspect of the magical practices.

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8 C  oncluding Remarks There is, however, something new in RFGB compared to LE and TLP. ‘Experience’ is beginning to play a role for Wittgenstein in a more visceral way than the somewhat lofty ‘experience of absolute value’ that took centre stage in LE. Though TLP still exerts its pull on key concepts in part one of RFGB there is a push for a much broader conception of how the transcendental aspect is realized and this forms a step forward in Wittgenstein’s general philosophical development. In TLP Wittgenstein tried with all his cerebral might to make viable and visible the transcendental aspect of logical representation and he thereby determined that philosophy transmute metaphysics into ineffable logic, claiming that all philosophical problems would vaporise in its focus. He had a firm idea of what philosophy and its method should and could be and the “experience” needed to realize this was in the end no experience at all but a mystical vision of an a priori logical order. (cf. TLP 5.552) In PI, this changed. Real life experience is now essential for making those judgments that form the backbone of the ‘form of life’ we belong to. We cannot systematically acquire the rules of such judgments and there is no ‘disengaged’ explanation, which could spare us the experience. (See for instance PI: 239e and PI §241) Philosophy in this later period seems volatile and to have no principal area of thought available to it. There is only human experience and the intermittent upheavals of thought that occasion philosophical reflection on our different forms of life.

References Conant, James/Diamond, Cora (2004) “On Reading TLP Resolutely”, in: Max Kölbel and Bernhard Weiss (eds.): Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, London: Routledge, 42–97. Frazer, James George (2009) The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion, Reissue, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) “A Lecture On Ethics”, in: James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (eds.): Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 36–44. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (eds.): Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 115–155. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2002) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 2nd edition, London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations, 4th edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Andreas Koritensky

Philosophy, Metaphysics and Religion The “Remarks on Frazer” as Introduction to Wittgenstein’s “Second” Book Abstract: The text now called Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough was drafted to provide material for the introduction to Wittgenstein’s “new book”. They must have been designed to fulfil roughly the same purpose as the Augustinian picture of language – which Wittgenstein mentions only a few days later for the first time – and the language-game of the builders in the Brown Book and the Philo­ sophical Investigations. A reading of the RFGB as an ethnological or religious study can be misleading – as probably a strictly language-centred reading of the PI, too. Therefore, I would like to outline two aspects in a reciprocal interpretation of RFGB and PI: (1) How did Wittgenstein understand his own philosophical project relating to the problem of misleading metaphysics and the “depth” he sensed in religious practices and narrations? What happened to the “depth” in the later texts? (2) How is his method – the morphology in the Goethean fashion and the language-games – connected to the ethnological material?

1 Introductory Texts of the Summer 1931 At the beginning of his holidays in Vienna, Wittgenstein opened a new section of remarks in his notebook with the words: “I now believe, it would right to begin a/my/ book with remarks about metaphysics as a kind of magic.” (MS 110: 177) During the following days (19 June–7 July 1931), he made several entries on ritual and myth, often, though not exclusively, inspired by James Frazer’s monumental study in the history of religion The Golden Bough, a work he had started to read during the previous term.1 With these entries Wittgenstein returned to a regular use of MS 110 which ended on 8 March (MS 110: 146–147), only followed by a single date from 5 May (MS 110: 147) which does not necessarily account for

1 Drury 1996: 119, reports about their reading of some passages of the first volume. The topics Wittgenstein discusses in MS 110 have their place in the volumes I/1, I/2 and VII/2. Wittgenstein cites passages from The Golden Bough in MS 110. Had he borrowed a copy from a Viennese library or did he already bring with him some notes on Frazer?

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the whole text up to page 177 where the just cited remark stands. The material selected for the Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough2 forms three larger blocks and several shorter sections in MS 110.3 They are surrounded by the usual discussion of the function of our language. In this surrounding material we find two further considerations on how to begin a new book. Here, Wittgenstein contemplates starting the book with a “description of nature” (MS 110: 258) or “of a situation” (MS 110: 243). Just one week after the last entry selected for the Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough we find Augustine’s report about how he had learned to speak as a child (MS 111: 15–16 and 18, dated 14/15 July 1931), the very passage from the Confessiones Wittgenstein uses later in the Brown Book and the Philosophical Investigations as the opening section. This report is already followed by an early version of the “game” of the builders (cf. PI §2). After 16 July when Wittgenstein had left Vienna for a trip to Norway the entries become scantier again. It is remarkable how little of the Frazer material found its way into the Big Typescript. The “mythology in the forms of our language” has melted to a short appendix of the chapter on philosophy (TS 213: 433–434).4 Here, we find the remains of the Frazer material combined with some notes from MS 109 (p. 210– 211) written on 8 November 1930 in the context of several sketches of a foreword for an unspecified book (MS 109: 204). The passage is referring to Paul Ernst’s interpretation of Grimms’ fairy tales and the rite of the scapegoat. Just a few days before, on 5 October 1930, we find Wittgenstein discussing Renan’s Peuple

2 The so-called Remarks on Frazer were created by Rhees in 1967 (Wittgenstein 1967: 233–253) and republished in a revised version in 1979 (Wittgenstein 1979). In this article, I will refer to the version of Klagge and Nordmann (Wittgenstein 1993b: 115–155), henceforth RFGB, which is a corrected form of the first version. 3 The larger blocks are MS 110: 178–185, 195–199, 203–206. Our edited text of the Remarks is a quite curious selection of texts consisting of one long and three shorter parts. The first and longest part is based on TS 211 (p. 313–322). Here we find the opening remark on the “source of error” written before Wittgenstein had started reading Frazer on 10 February 1931, MS 110: 58) followed by a selection of texts related to Frazer in quite a disordered fashion. The editor has also added a passage on method from MS 110 (p. 257) stemming from another section of TS 211 (p. 281–282). The second part is a combination of two remarks from TS 211 (p. 250–251, 281) but it leaves out a passage on the “primitive forms of our language” that had already followed it in MS 110 (p. 206) and the transferred remarks on the method (TS 211: 281). The two last parts have been selected from MS 110 (p. 253 and 297–299). The decision to follow the version of TS 211 – in an already modified form – for the edition (or creation) of the Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough” may be questionable. We will follow here the original notes and their order in MS 110. 4 Augustine’s conception of learning a language has found its place at the beginning of the chapter on meaning (TS 213: 25–26).



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­ ’Israel, criticizing his positivistic account of the primitive mind and comparing d the Semitic style of thinking to his own philosophical work (MS 109: 200–202). I want to stress three aspects of this brief survey: First, for a short period in October 1930 and June/July 1931, Wittgenstein was contemplating the beginning (foreword and opening sections) of a new, a second book which had not yet taken shape. Second, he recognized a significant connection between philosophy and the “primitive” world of magical thinking. Third, it looks like as if this connection seems to have vanished soon after from Wittgenstein’s sight. When the Remarks on Frazer were edited in 1967 for the first time, it was tempting to read them as a contribution to the on-going debate on the re-evaluation of “primitive” cultures and their independent rationalities.5 To me, it seems more likely that Wittgenstein, who showed strong prejudices in favour of the European – and especially German – (aesthetic) culture of the first half of the 19th century, had no serious interest in any of the cultures Frazer described in his Golden Bough. However, he shared with many of the early readers of the edited Remarks on Frazer the critical attitude towards the modern civilisation of the western world and its claim to superiority (cf. e.g. MS 109: 205). The Remarks on Frazer from MS 110 differ in one crucial point from Wittgenstein’s other thoughts on culture, value and religion including those notes concerning the Golden Bough edited from MS 143 as second part of the Remarks: The text in MS 110 was explicitly designed to explain and to solve philosophical problems with language, the language we use and which is part of our life – and not the ritual practices and mental outlook of “primitive” cultures around the globe. Of course, this does not mean that these texts have nothing to say about religion. But we have to be cautious not to expect a comprehensive philosophy of religion or theory of cultural pluralism. If we take Wittgenstein’s announcement at the beginning of the entries of 19 July about the purpose of his remarks on Frazer seriously, we have to consider their intended use. This caveat becomes even more urgent, when we see Wittgenstein’s Remarks in the context of the discussion on religion in Wittgenstein’s own time. Frazer’s magnum opus The Golden Bough was first published in 1890 and is deeply rooted in the emerging religious studies of the 19th century. He is indebted to Edward B. Tylor’s positivist account of the history of the human mind: Magic is a form of erroneous proto-scientific thought: “[…] the analogy between the magical and the scientific conceptions of the world is close.”6 Compared to the state of the art in religious studies Frazer’s work was already outdated when Wittgen­stein

5 It is a very curious fact that Rush Rhees banned Wittgenstein’s introduction of his remarks into the foreword and omitted the introduction completely in the second edition. 6 Frazer 1963: 221.

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criticised it in 1931.7 The concept of pre-animism launched by Robert R. Marett in a celebrated lecture in 1899 opened a new perspective on religious phenomena. They were no more considered to be proto-scientific theories but as the expression of feelings of awe and reference. Therefore, Wittgenstein’s Remarks offer no new or exciting insights concerning the interpretation of religion. They simply repeat what can be considered the established mainstream in religious studies of the time and are rather simple compared to the more elaborated theories of Söderblom, van der Leeuw or Rudolf Otto and Walter F. Otto. Several questions arise from these observations: Why was Wittgenstein so fascinated by the primitive forms of thought represented in myth and rite? What use did he want make of them? And how can we explain their disappearing? In this essay, we will examine those of Wittgenstein’s notes in which he explains his method and the function of the ethnological studies for his philosophical project.

2 T  he Relation between Metaphysics, Magic and Mythology (1) Wittgenstein’s elenctic method. In their edited form the Remarks on Frazer begin with methodical considerations (RFGB: 118). As in the Platonic elenchus, the first step to finding the truth is the dissolution of one’s own amathia. That is only possible, if the interlocutors of the “philosopher” become aware of the “source of their errors”.8 What does Wittgenstein mean by this metaphor? Written several months before the remarks on Frazer, these methodological considerations had their original context in an investigation of the term “to think”.9 On 29 June 1931 – in the time when the texts on myth and magic emerge – Wittgenstein returns to the methodical questions and restates them more clearly (MS 110: 229–230). Wittgenstein announces his intention to sketch the “physiognomy” (Physiognomie) of every error. This metaphor stresses two points. On the one hand, the object has to be captured in its individuality. On the other hand, it is necessary to draw

7 Cf. Kippenberg 1997: 179–193. 8 I am indebted to Josef Rothhaupt for the reference to Aristotle 1894: EN 1154a22–25 which Wittgenstein paraphrases here. 9 The editor counted them among the Remarks on Frazer because they were marked in MS 110 (pp. 58, 63) with a circle and a stroke like the following notes on myth and rite from the summer of 1931.



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the “essential” features (der charakteristische Ausdruck). Insofar, Wittgenstein can also claim at the same time that this is a way of expressing the error “generally” (allgemein). A physiognomy is successful, if the interlocutor recognizes his own thoughts (Gedanken), train of thought (Gedankengänge), feeling (Gefühl) or inclination (Neigung). This anamnesis, Wittgenstein hopes, may have a therapeutic effect. The portrait reveals a mistaken analogy, which is responsible for the error (MS 110: 230 und 232). A little later, Wittgenstein specifies the “source of error” (MS 110: 234): It is the belief that the expressions of a language must rest on mental “ideas” (Gedanken, Vorstellungen). Nevertheless, Wittgenstein is not denying that there may be such mental processes, that they accompany the language and even may be of a certain importance. (2) Metaphysics. In the manuscript version of our text, Wittgenstein begins with the proposal that the concept of metaphysics can be elucidated by the concept of magic and adds the wish to retain the “depth” of magic. The term “metaphysics” does not reappear in the following notes. Therefore, we have to start with a closer look on Wittgenstein’s pre-conception of metaphysics. (a) Metaphysics in Wittgenstein’s meaning of the term rests on the idea that reality consists of a phenomenal surface and a basic structure beneath it (MS 111: 4–5). Metaphysicians believe that this basic structure represents the more important part. (i) Wittgenstein expresses this priority often in epistemic terms. The knowledge of the basic structure provides an explanation (Erklärung) of the functioning of the surface structure (MS 112: 240; MS 131: 56). Therefore, metaphysical inquiries seem to have to satisfy a theoretical interest. (ii) Apparently, Wittgenstein has different types of explanations in mind: Such explanations may consist in (conceptual) generalisation (MS 132: 102) or in the quest for something “sublime” (MS 142: 32, 82). In this sense most of the traditional (“idealistic”) philosophy and also the logic as presented in the Tractatus must be considered as metaphysical thought. The same “metaphysical” traits can be found also in philosophical word-views influenced by the sciences. The hidden structure philosophers are looking for is in these cases a mechanism. E.g., mental phenomena are to be explained by the physical build-up of the brain (MS 115: 192–193; MS 131: 140). So, Wittgenstein’s concept of metaphysics is rather broad and comprehends large parts of the history of philosophy. (b) But why are the attempts at metaphysical theorizing so persistent, even though their project does not seem to have made any progress since Plato’s times (MS 111: 133–134)? If it were a simple mistake, we should be able to mend it quickly by pointing this out to the erring philosopher (MS 110: 179). Wittgenstein therefore

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suspects that metaphysical thinking is not rooted in an intellectual mistake, but springs from a strong mental impulse, often called tendency (Tendenz, MS 111: 48), inclination (Neigung, MS 113: 45), stimulus (Reiz, MS 113: 233) or feeling (Gefühl, MS 110: 189). The intellectual capacities of human beings are secondary to their instinct-guided animal nature. Thought and language arise ontogenetically and phylogenetically from instinctive behaviour. These instinctive traits do not vanish with the development of thought and rationality but become themselves more elaborate. There are mental impulses which shape the modes of our perception of the phenomena around us (MS 135: 40–41; MS 123: 27r/v). Especially two mental inclinations seem to play a role in the genesis of metaphysical thought: (i.) On the one hand, there is the inclination to “generalize” (MS 131: 56). Human beings tend to apply a reduced set of communicative media, e.g. the subject-predicate-structure or imaginative (or “metaphorical”) forms that permeate our language (MS 110: 203–206, 247–248) and give it a mythological outlook: “An entire mythology is stored within our language” (MS 110: 205). (ii.) But he also talks of a “tendency towards the immediate” (MS 111: 5). Here, Wittgenstein describes a more complex phenomenon. It begins with the feeling that language is blocking our access to reality. Wittgenstein speaks of a “desire to understand the verification of a proposition which seems to be totally veiled by language” (MS 111: 5f.). He blames especially the simplifying and generalizing structures created by impulses of type (i) for the rise of that uneasiness. They are the dangerous analogies in language Wittgenstein wants us to warn of (MS 110: 229). The tendency of the type (ii) may be spontaneous, but it is not a blind drive. It presupposes an – imperfect – act of self-reflection. The means to cut the “veil of language” is what Wittgenstein usually calls an “explanation”. But even this is not a deliberative choice. Also, by giving an explanation the philosopher follows a mental tendency (MS 131: 56). The structure of such an explanation is uniform and therefore as simple as the logical scaffold of the Tractatus (MS 110: 178). This is the reason why Wittgenstein can distinguish between simple pictures (MS 110: 197, 206) – caused by inclinations of type (i) – and oversimplified pictures in our language (MS 110: 183–184) which are created by the misleading explanations caused by inclinations of type (ii). It is very helpful to distinguish between the two types if we want to understand Wittgenstein’s different treatment of traditional mythological expressions and “metaphysical” thinking. (c) There is an ambiguity in Wittgenstein’s description of the mental uneasiness (Beunruhigung, MS 110: 181; MS 112: 240, MS 113: 233) usually felt when we contemplate the functioning of our language. It is an act of self-reflection leading



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into astonishment about what used to be most common and most familiar. The vocabulary Wittgenstein employs in this context seems to indicate that something grand is at stake: extraordinariness, importance, depth, fundamentality – just to cite some examples from the summer of 1931 (Merkwürdigkeit, Wichtigkeit, Tiefe, Fundamentalität, MS 157: 61r and MS 110: 176–177, 194). The remarks on magic and metaphysics correspond to a group of notes on the “importance of grammar” preceding them immediately in MS 110 – though it is hard to say when they were written down. (3) Magic. Wittgenstein introduces magic as a means to elucidate metaphysics. Literally, the text seems to suggest subsuming metaphysics under magic (“eine Art der Magie”, MS 110: 177). And as his use of the term shows, Wittgenstein does not see any great difference between magic and religion (magische und religiöse Anschauungen, MS 110: 178). We would expect now a comparison showing the resemblance of metaphysical and magical thinking. But that is not exactly what Wittgenstein is actually doing. What he compares to magical practice and mythical narration is language.10 And it is Frazer’s interpretation of magic which resembles metaphysical explanation. That is quite an unexpected switch, because Wittgenstein frequently uses the terms “myth” and “mythology” to criticize the creation of metaphysical “upper worlds” through philosophical speculation (e.g. MS 108: 104; MS 110: 103 and 120). Normally his use of these terms is metaphorical, depending completely on the concept of metaphysics and can also be replaced by “poetry” (MS 109: 202; MS 183: 72). In this respect Wittgenstein’s view on myth and magic in the remarks on Frazer is unique in his Nachlass.11 But it repeats the distinction between the two forms of inclination which Wittgenstein holds responsible for the rise of metaphysics.

3 G  iving a Description of Nature: Wittgenstein and the Morphological Method (1) A realistic point of view. Why should we interest ourselves in magical and mythical cultures? Wittgenstein excludes for himself two possible reasons (MS 110: 177): (a) On the one hand, he has no interest in an apologetic enterprise

10 Wittgenstein links myth to magical practice (rite): “Unsere Sprache ist die Verkörperung alter Mythen. Und der Ritus der alten Mythen war eine Sprache.” (MS 110: 256) 11 The only comparable use of “mythology” is to be found in MS 174: 21v/22r (=OC 95 and 97).

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which could justify a “primitive” culture against the claims of an “imperialist” western civilisation or defend traditional religious opinions. This is important for attempts to use the Remarks as vindication of religion or pluralism of rationality. (b) On the other hand, Wittgenstein rejects an “enlightened” scorn of the alleged ignorant. Such a scorn is prejudiced because those indulging it are not aware of their own intellectual framework and that it still has more in common with the primitive than the modern mind might expect. But what alternative has Wittgenstein to offer? There is a curious remark in the draft of a foreword from November 1930 (MS 109: 204–20612). In strong words, Wittgenstein expresses his dislike (fremd, unsympathisch, größtes Mißtrauen) for the spirit that shapes the mentality of modern civilization. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein insists that this does not imply any value judgment (Werturteil). The reason for this surprising statement is his distinction between the presence (or absence) of the cultural means to give values a proper expression and the existence of the value of the individual (Wert des Einzelnen). Wittgenstein suspects that the European world of the interwar period has lost its ability to make values explicit. But even the unsuccessful struggle of the human being has to be recognized as a proof of the existence of value. Concerning magical cultures we are just in a slightly different situation. Here, the means expressing the value are foreign to us. In both cases we have to overcome a hermeneutical gap. Wittgenstein does not claim a neutral, “disengaged” perspective when he demands doing “justice to the facts” (MS 110: 184). It is rather a realistic, an “unpoetic” perspective that “heads straight for what is concrete” (MS 109: 202) and retains so the “depth of magic” – whatever this may be (MS 110: 177). How can we learn to look at things in this “realistic” manner? There are two more statements concerning the beginning of the new book Wittgenstein is planning in summer 1931 which can help us to answer that question. Wittgenstein closes his entries on 29 June with the following bracketed remark: “(I should perhaps begin my book with the analysis of an everyday sentence as ‘There is a lamp on my table’. From there it should be possible to get everywhere. […])”13 And repeating this “long considered idea”, he calls this sentence a “description of nature” (Naturbeschreibung) and a “description of a situation” (Beschreibung einer Situation).

12 An earlier version of the ideas expressed in this text appears in MS 183: 46 (8 October 1930). 13 MS 110: 243: “(Ich sollte mein Buch vielleicht mit der Analyse eines alltäglichen Satzes, etwa „auf meinem Tisch steht eine Lampe“, anfangen. Von da aus müßte man überall hingelangen können. […])”



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(2) Means of description. Three days later (2 July) he comes back to this idea in a longer excursus on method (MS 110: 256–259).14 Here, his intentions become clearer. Wittgenstein sets the stage with a citation of Schiller’s reaction when Goethe developed his idea of proto-phenomena (Urphänomene) during their first encounter (MS 110: 25615). Goethe had a critical attitude towards the mechanistic and schematic stance the emerging natural sciences took in their research on living organisms. The concept of the proto-phenomenon ought offer us an alternative view on nature. Although Goethe’s thoughts on the subject do not always fit into a coherent system, it is nevertheless possible to identify three basic ideas. (a) Nature has a holistic structure. Natural objects show a certain resemblance to one another thereby creating a continuum of possible intermediary phenomena. This continuum is the “secret law” (MS 110: 256) permeating the realm of the plants. (b) Our epistemic access to this order of nature runs through the concrete phenomena; “This would be the highest: To understand that everything factual is already theory. The blue of the sky reveals us the chromatic basic law. One should not look behind the phenomena: They are the doctrine themselves.”16 (c) This leaves us two possibilities to find the structure of nature: First, by arranging the objects in a row until we can grasp their “natural” order. Second, there could be certain concrete objects of an archetypical kind that show the whole continuum. Goethe, for example, hoped to find a proto-plant (Urpflanze) which can disclose the whole realm of real and possible plants. (d) One reason for Goethe’s criticism of the abstract and static representation in the natural sciences is the inadequacy of this method in grasping the characteristics of the dynamic and form-shifting world of the living phenomena. (3) Perspicuous representations. Goethe’s defence of the individuality of the concrete natural phenomena against scientific abstract generality – expressed e.g. in his poem Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen cited in MS 110 (p. 25617) – has not failed to impress Wittgenstein (MS 110: 257–258). Therefore, it is not surprising that we find him testing an adaption of the morphological method in his investigation of language. Both concepts are present in MS 110. (a) First, a description of

14 Four sections of the text have found their way into the edited Remarks on Frazer (RFGB: 132). Only two of them come from TS 211 two more have been added from MS 110. But even so the text remains a torso. 15 Cf. Goethe 1998a: 540. 16 Goethe 1998b: §488: “Das Höchste wäre: zu begreifen, daß alles Faktische schon Theorie ist. Die Bläue des Himmels offenbart uns das Grundgesetz der Chromatik. Man suche nichts hinter den Phänomenen: sie selbst sind die Lehre.” 17 Cf. Goethe 1998c: 107–109.

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nature or of a situation can become a proto-phenomenon. It must be a carefully selected or designed situation from which “it should be possible to get everywhere” (MS 110: 243). (b) Second, Wittgenstein makes three suggestions how to arrange the phenomena to reveal their “law” or “idea”, according to a (fictional or real) hypothesis of development, a schema, or by simply grouping the material in a “perspicuous representation” (MS 110: 256). We have followed the texts in MS 110 in which Wittgenstein discusses the beginning of his new book. First, we have learned about a relation between magic and metaphysics which as an introduction to the planned book can shed some light on our problems with language. Second, we have been introduced to a tool kit consisting of instruments dedicated to the evocation of an “understanding” (Verstehen/Verständnis, MS 110: 257). There are two questions left: How and where are these instruments applied? What do we gain from their use?

4 The Application of the Method (1) The morphological method as means of comparison. It was Oswald Spengler who introduced the morphological method systematically for the interpretation of cultures which he compared to living organisms. Wittgenstein was reading his Decline of the West in May 1930.18 There are even striking resemblances between the stories Spengler and Wittgenstein tell to explain the development of religion and philosophy.19 However, there is a crucial difference in Wittgenstein’s version of the morphological method. While Spengler tends to read a lawful process into cultural developments, Wittgenstein suggests using the proto-phenomena and the skilful arrangements of facts as undogmatic means of comparison (MS 111: 119–120; PI §§130–131). They are means of comparison because they are concrete facts characterized by their Übersichtlichkeit. Something can be called übersichtlich, if it is limited and well-ordered enough to allow a comprehensive grasp of it. What Wittgenstein has in mind is something like a model showing the functions (or some functions) of a complex mechanism lacking this kind of “perspicuity” (Übersichtlichkeit). This “model” is undogmatic, because it is not an imaginative representation of the cultural or linguistic structure. Its purpose is not representation but the creation of insight concerning the more complicated

18 MS 183: 16–17, 29; see also the references to Spengler in summer 1931: MS 110: 257; MS 111: 119–120. 19 Cf. Spengler 1997: 723 and MS 110: 297–299.



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object it is compared to. This method supplies Wittgenstein with the necessary instruments to elucidate language after he had given up the logical analysis of the Tractatus. (2) Fields of application. How does Wittgenstein apply this method in MS 110? What are the means and what the object of the comparison? And what insight may he and his readers gain from it? There are at least two, probably three levels of comparisons on which Wittgenstein tests his new method. (a) The investigation of magic. The stage for the first comparison is set by the problem of how to interpret ethnological material. We have to take into account two objects, the ritual practices (magical and religious) on the one hand, and the positivist explanation Frazer offers us, on the other. And we can discern two methodological approaches, the critical elenctic sketching of the “physiognomy of error” and the positive use of the morphology which we may call here, for convenience sake, the morphological method proper. Drawing a physiognomy means to describe the established structures of thought in such a way that the misleading strategy following mental inclination (ii) – i.e. the tendency towards the immediate – becomes clear; and it should become also clear that mental inclination (ii) is an unfortunate consequence of a language shaped by inclination (i) – i.e. the tendency to generalize. But even the elenctic operations which stand at the beginning of a philosophical investigation rest on the method of comparison. The physiognomic sketch has to unite the essential features with generality to make the common mental tendencies visible which find their expression in the problematic habits of our language. The sketch is successful, when we are able to bring the mental impulses into consciousness. In that respect the elenctic approach follows the line of the morphological method. The morphological comparison proper serves our understanding by enabling us to an enlightened use of the very language, even though it is (also) formed by mental inclinations of type (i). (i.) Can we find the elenctic method in Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer? We have to consider two aspects: On the one hand, Wittgenstein has chosen a relatively easy target. The optimistic rationalism of the 19th century has lost much of its force. Therefore, Wittgenstein can expect many of his contemporaries to follow him in his judgement that the explanations of the anthropologist are inappropriate to elucidate their subject. On the other hand, Frazer, though scientifically outdated, was still widely read in the 1930s because his ethnological study could be easily blended with the common opinion of broad strata in the British society reading the Golden Bough as an vindication either of the superiority of the British society over those of their colonial subjects,

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or of the superiority of a scientific world-view over religion.20 Insofar, Frazer still represented – in a plain way – a common mentality. And it is because of this plainness in stating a certain mentality that Wittgenstein can call Frazer “more savage than his savages” (MS 110: 205). (ii.) The method of comparison through purposeful arrangements of the material is explicitly introduced as a means to understand religious practices (religiöse Zeremonien, MS 110: 256). That is to be done e.g. by collecting and arranging ethnological reports. One has to choose a form of representation which lets the hearers realize immediately what is essential in the ceremony (MS 110: 179–180). Wittgenstein himself recognizes Frazer’s enormous talent to present his reports in a captivating manner that makes one almost forget his rationalist theoretical framework. A form of representation fulfils its purpose if we can connect it to our own mental inclinations (MS 110: 196) and so create a feeling of satisfaction (MS 110: 180). A problem is the interpretation of the term “satisfaction”. Two questions arise here: First, Wittgenstein presupposes – as many scholars in his time – that magical rites spring from a pre-rational feeling of awe. An understanding of the rite is given if the same pre-rational feelings are stimulated in our mind. Does this imply a reduction of religion to an emotional response to the reality we live in? We will postpone the discussion of this question for a moment. Second, does satisfaction and understanding mean the elimination of our mental inclinations, or is it their fulfilment? What Wittgenstein does is a crossing of cultural borders by a regress to the common ground of the conditio humana. We have to bear in mind Wittgenstein’s conviction that his era has lost shared means to express the experience of value and meaning. Therefore, he and his potential readers have to undergo a process of learning. The morphological method makes – in the comparison to the primitive rites – the buried traits of our mind visible for which we have lost the ability of expression. Here the distinction between the two forms of mental inclinations which are responsible for the emergence of metaphysics becomes crucial again. The second inclination is indeed dissolved by Wittgenstein’s philosophy. But there is something in the first type of inclination that is just to be made visible, not to be dissolved. (b) The investigation of language. Does Wittgenstein repeat the method developed in his discussion of primitive religious cultures in his investigation of language? Wittgenstein stresses the comparability of the questions raised by ritual with those raised by language (MS 110: 204–206). Here, it is ordinary language and its

20 Cf. Wißmann 1997: 86.



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metaphysical explanations that should be disentangled. In the texts surrounding the remarks on Frazer, he discusses linguistic practices such as uttering a wish, giving orders (MS 110: 190, 210), remembering (MS 110: 288) or distinguishing colours (MS 110: 265–268). The main focus seems to be on the elenctic task. Wittgenstein combats an intellectualistic interpretation of language. More concretely, Wittgenstein stresses in the later parts of MS 110 especially the following problem: What role does the imagination (Vorstellung) play for the understanding e.g. of an order or of a wish? Wittgenstein agrees that there is “some truth in the idea” (etwas an der Idee richtig [ist]) that imagining the fact (Vorstellen der Tatsache) is crucial for the understanding (Verstehen).21 Imagining is just another example of a primitive symbolism (MS 110: 194), like gesture language compared to word language.22 But that does not mean that the imagination is more fundamental than word language. The possibility to imagine what a sentence says appears as proof that it is meaningful, because we would be obliged to describe the imagination with a sentence resembling the sentence under investigation (MS 110: 288–289). We have to be aware of the archaic structure of our language, but we cannot get rid of it: “(A simile is part of our edifice; but we cannot draw any conclusions from it either; it doesn’t lead us beyond itself, but must remain standing as a simile. We can draw no inferences from it. As when we compare a sentence to a picture […].)”23 Here again, we are confronted with the two levels of pictorial structure, the simple and the over-simplified pictures in our language, that require a different treatment. The discussion of language follows generally the same line as the discussion of magic, although it is less obvious that Wittgenstein employs the method he had developed in the context of the ethnological study. (c) Magic and language. The primitive religious expressions on the one side and orders, wishes or memory on the other side could be seen as equal parts of a successive investigation of language. But it seems more plausible to read the

21 “Die Idee |die man| von dem Verstehe hat, ist etwa, daß man dabei von dem Zeichen näher die verifizierende Tatsache kommt, etwa durch die Vorstellung. Und wenn man auch nicht wesentlich, d.h. logisch, näher kommt, so ist doch etwas an der Idee richtig, daß das Verstehen in dem Vorstellen der Tatsache besteht. Die Sprache der Vorstellung ist in dem gleichen Sinne wie die Gebärdensprache primitiv.” (MS 110: 193–194; cf. MS 110: 199) 22 Cf. also MS 110: 289: “Ich habe ja nur den Satz in einem primitiveren Symbolismus wiederholt.” 23 “(Ein Gleichnis gehört zu unserem Gebäude; aber wir können auch aus ihm keine Folgen ziehen, es führt uns nicht über sich selbst hinaus sondern muß als Gleichnis stehen bleiben. Wir können keine Folgerungen daraus ziehen. So wenn wir den Satz mit einem Bild vergleichen […])” (MS 110: 216). I follow here the translation of Klagge and Nordmann (1997: 177).

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remarks on primitive rite as means of comparison for the philosophical problems with language as a whole. Magical practices are early phenomena in the natural history of humankind. They are simple and comprehensive forms of expression. And it is not too difficult to show that Frazer’s old-fashioned attempts to explain the magical practices are misleading. Insofar, the whole discussion of magic and Fazer’s interpretation of it can be understood as simple model of comparison which can shed some light from the limited and simple world of a primitive society to the more complex structures and functions of our own more elaborated language. (3) The savage and St. Augustine. Even the earliest remarks on Frazer link together the magical practice of the sacrifice of the priest king of Nemi and the religion of the saintly bishop of Hippo (MS 110: 178). Not long after, Wittgenstein returns to Augustine in a short sketch of what later became the introduction to the Brown Book und the Philosophical Investigations (MS 111: 15–19). Augustine gives a thoroughly Platonic account of his learning to speak as a child. The little Augustine, so he imagined it later, had already a mind stuffed with innate concepts and was just acquiring their names (Benennen, MS 111: 15). Twice Wittgenstein explains his reasons for choosing the ancient Church Father. On the one hand, Augustine is a highly respected scholar with a “natural” and “clear” mind (natürlich-klar denkend). On the other hand, he represents also a long forgone and foreign culture (nicht zu unserem Gedankenkreis gehörend).24 And a little later, Wittgenstein repeats this aspect in a more radical version: Augustine’s theory is the expression of a primitive view or world-view (primitive Anschauung, primitives Weltbild).25 Does Augustine’s Platonism replace the magical worldview or Frazer’s rationalistic explanations? This question is not easy to answer. We find again the ambiguity of the two mental impulses leading into the metaphysical trap. (i) The fact that he characterizes Augustine as natural-minded and the remarks that there is a deep Platonic trait in the foundation of ordinary language (MS 110: 206) suggest the first. Augustine would then take the place of the primitive people from the Golden Bough. Strangeness and the primitive character make

24 “Und was Augustinus sagt ist für uns wichtig weil es die Auffassung eines natürlich-klar denkenden Mannes ist, der von uns zeitlich weit entfernt ist, gewiß nicht zu unserem besonderen Gedankenkreis gehört.” (MS 111: 15–16) 25 “Ich wollte eigentlich/ursprünglich/ sagen: Wie Augustinus das Lernen der Sprache beschreibt, kann uns zeigen, woher sich diese Auffassung überhaupt schreibt. (Von welcher primitiven Anschauung/welchem primitiven Bild, Weltbild/.)” (MS 111: 18)



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Augustine’s account of language-learning an ideal description of the common mentality embedded in our languages. (ii) On the other hand there is, contrary to the Golden Bough, no easy way to distinguish between the primitive mentality and the theoretical explanations. Insofar, the text from the Confessiones is also a striking example of a misguided metaphysical explanation of language (MS 111: 18–19). What seems clearer is the role of the passage from Augustine: Wittgenstein uses it as elenctic physiognomy. The proto-language-game of the builder which is part of the first reflection on Augustine’s theory of language-learning (MS 111: 16–17; cf. PI §2) is a typical example of the morphological method proper. It gives us a survey of the proper use of a part of the language and shows how it is integrated into life. Thus the language-games of the Brown Book and of the (original) definitions in PI §7 or PI §§130–131 have their origin in Wittgenstein’s reception of Goethe’s natural philosophy.

5 The Purpose of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy We have followed the emergence of the opening section of Wittgenstein’s “new book” which will take shape in the end as the Philosophical Investigations. This path began with a project on magic and ended with the familiar passage from Augustine. There seems to be a crucial difference between the two approaches Wittgenstein considers during the summer of 1931: their treatment of the problem of the meaning of life and the origin of value, in short, everything Wittgenstein discusses in his later years as religious questions. The investigation of magic which is closely linked to religion does not only serve as a hint how to get a right perspective on language as a whole. It also has bearings on the ambiguity of mental uneasiness and the depth of magic that is to be retained (MS 110: 177) – concepts, though still waiting for an explanation, that clearly point to the complex of the problem of life. And it is rather surprising, if we bear in mind how important that problem was for Wittgenstein in the Tractatus and how frequent the remarks on it in his later notebooks are, that the problem seems to have vanished together with the primitive people of Frazer’s study in the Philosophical Investigations. Therefore, we have to consider what Wittgenstein is aiming at in his philosophy. As Wittgenstein is very reluctant to enter into a meta-discourse of his philosophy (MS 109: 209), we have to assess several possibilities: Is Wittgenstein a classical analytic philosopher who just wants to destroy metaphysics by his analysis of language? Or does he revive the philosophy of language which is typical for

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German romanticism? Both solutions are not very attractive, so we will close with an alternative suggestion. (1) Quietist analytic philosophy or conservative romanticism? To the question about the goal of his philosophy and the purpose of the skilful descriptions and arrangements of the material Wittgenstein answers: They serve as means to “sharpen our eye” (MS 110, 257) for certain connections (Zusammenhänge). The remarks on Frazer contain a specimen of the connection that Wittgenstein wants to make visible. To understand a primitive ritual we must be able to connect it to an instinct (MS 110: 297–298) or an inclination (MS 110: 196) in us. This may lead us to a first tentative answer to the question what purpose Wittgenstein’s philosophy has. Philosophy is an elenctic activity to make us recognize the physiognomy of our errors, thereby dissolving the instinctive mental inclinations: “[…] In another sense, however, philosophy requires a resignation, but one of feeling and not of intellect. […]”26 The work of philosophy is completely done when we have stopped to ask philosophical (i.e. metaphysical) questions: “Philosophy as I practice it is in its entire task: to form the expression in such a way that certain uneasinesses/problems/ disappear”.27 This would be the “analytic Wittgenstein”. This first answer may appear unsatisfactory, if we take the undercurrent of remarks into account that are concerned with the problem of life. So we could make an addition to the merely elenctic approach: Philosophy is not only curing our desire for metaphysical explanations. We also learn to return to the ordinary use of language which seems to have a normative character. It appears to be the proper form of communication that fits into form of life including the world we live in. But this interpretation gives Wittgenstein’s philosophy an ambiguous look. On the one hand, it is a philosophy of “Enlightenment”. We learn to overcome our erroneous desires, become liberated from misleading metaphysics and learn to cope with the sober reality. On the other hand, this gives to Wittgenstein’s thought also a conservative trait: Philosophy “leaves everything as it is” (MS 110: 188,28 cf. PI §124).

26 I follow here the translation of Klagge and Nordmann (PO: 163). The original text stands in MS 110 (p.189) between the remarks on Frazer: “In diesem Sinn aber erfordert die Philosophie dann eine Resignation, aber des Gefühls, nicht des Verstandes.” 27 “Wie ich Philosophie betreibe, ist es ihre ganze Aufgabe, den Ausdruck so zu gestalten, daß gewisse Beunruhigungen/Probleme/ verschwinden.” (MS 112: 44) 28 MS 110: 188: “Die Philosophie darf den wirklichen/tatsächlichen/ Gebrauch der Sprache in keiner Weise antasten, sie kann ihn am Ende also nur beschreiben. Denn sie kann ihn auch nicht begründen. Sie läßt alles wie es ist.”



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In the context of the discussion of primitive cultures, as we find it in the remarks on Frazer, this demand can easily be confused with a romantic approach towards language. Language was by scholars of that era like Wilhelm von Humboldt considered as the incarnation of the individual “national mind” (nationale Geisteskraft).29 Therefore, every language is irreducible and has to be accepted in it its own rights. There is no general linguistic ideal to which they should be conforming. Such a theory would neatly fit into Wittgenstein’s adaption of Goethe’s morphology which seems to spring from a kindred spirit. Wittgenstein’s open contempt for the standardizing modern culture (MS 109: 204–205) and his criticism of the “cosmopolitan” metaphysics form a whole. But what is the alternative Wittgenstein wants us to embrace? Is it a language-based particularism? Wittgenstein shows relative little inclination towards this solution of cultural relativism. He seems to be more interested in the pre-rational, instinctive character of the collective mind of (primitive) people. But this would make the goal of his therapeutic philosophy no less awkward. Should we, by overcoming our desires for metaphysical explanations, simply fall in line with an alleged traditional instinctbased lifestyle? Does Wittgenstein – deep in his heart – want to lead us back from the industrial civilisation to the happy and simple life of the common people as Tolstoy praised them in his late works? These questions concern the anthropological framework of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. We seem to be caught in a dilemma: Either we have to pay the price of romanticism for the practical relevance of philosophy, or we have to reduce philosophy to analytic elenctics. (2) Instinct, reason and liberty. Philosophizing is “working on oneself” (MS 112: 46) Wittgenstein says on 14 October 1931. And human beings – this is an important insight permeating Wittgenstein’s thought – cannot be reduced to an abstract reason. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is a self-reflection of reason, although it is the incarnate reason of a basically instinct-guided animal. Revealing the natural (pre-rational) origin of our thought and language is so important to Wittgenstein that it may even seem as if he wants to reduce thought and language to an (instinct-guided) behaviour. Wittgenstein’s treatment of religion in the remarks on Frazer is a striking example of that kind of emphasis. From the beginning he tries to root religious forms of expression in emotional reactions (e.g. the “dreadful”, MS 110: 180). And so it is not surprising that we find him repeating this idea in the last group of remarks again: A ritual “phenomenon” has to be linked to an instinct in us – “and that is the desired explanation”

29 Cf. Humboldt 2003: 289f.

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(MS  110: 297–298). As usual, he insists on the absence of reason and of – probably: deliberate – choice in the origin of rituals (MS 110: 298). But after that there comes a sudden revocation followed by a more differentiated restatement: One could say that it was not their union (the oak and man) that has given rise to these rites, but in a certain sense their separation. For the awakening of the intellect occurs with a separation from the original soil, the original basis of life. (The origin of choice.) (The form of the awakening spirit is veneration.)30

It is a rather sketchy section for which I want to suggest the following reading: To a certain degree it belongs to the conditio humana that human beings grow out of the control of instinctive impulses. Wittgenstein connects this process with the genesis of the intellectual capacities – including the ability to reflect on one’s own existence, behaviour and on the world. We can also conceptualize our world consciously. A key remark of our text is “the origin of choice”. To the degree in which humans are not guided by their instincts the necessity to act consciously becomes a problem. This space of freedom will be experienced as Sinnoffenheit, as lack of and openness for existential meaning. A decision for a certain act presupposes the existence of values. Insofar, the loss of the guidance of the instincts must be accompanied by the apprehension of values. Wittgenstein connects the origin of reasonable reflection, the ability to make decision and the experience of value with the religious habitus of veneration. For Wittgenstein, religion consists mainly in the ability to perceive the world in a certain “light” – as the space of God’s presence – and this includes probably also a dimension of value. The fundamental experience of liberty is the source for the ambiguity of the uneasiness. This experience is, on the one hand, the necessary condition for the quest for the meaning of life and for the experience of existential meaning which makes decisions and thereby human life possible. On the other hand, this experience is the reason for the possibility to misunderstand our basic communicative

30 The translation follows again Klagge and Nordmann (PO: 139). “Man könnte sagen nicht ihre Vereinigung (von Eiche und Mensch) hat zu diesen Riten die Veranlassung gegeben, sondern vielleicht ihre Trennung [sondern, in gewissem Sinne, ihre Trennung] Denn das Erwachen des Intellekts geht meiner Trennung von dem ursprünglichen Boden der ursprünglichen Grundlagen des Lebens vor sich. (Die Entstehung der Wahl.) (Die Form des erwachenden Geistes ist die Verehrung.)” (MS 110: 298–299)



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practices and to look for an artificial safeguard. Therefore, metaphysical theories are indicators for the mental dizziness as consequence of liberty. Wittgenstein’s philosophy is, if my interpretation is right, aimed at the preservation of that ambiguous space of freedom. When Wittgenstein replaced the remarks on magic with the text from Augustine as introduction to his book, he gained a clearer structure for his investigation. But an important presupposition of his philosophy became invisible at the same time.

References Aristoteles (1894) Ethica Nicomachea, Oxford: Oxford University Press.. Drury, Maurice O’C. (1996) “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, in: Maurice O’C. Drury: The Danger of Words and Writings on Wittgenstein, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 97–171. Frazer, James G. (1963) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, 3rd edition, London/New York: MacMillan/St. Martin’s Press. Goethe, Johann W. v. (1998a) Werke, vol. 10: Autobiographische Schriften II, Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Goethe, Johann W. v. (1998b) Werke, vol. 12: Schriften zur Kunst und Literatur. Maximen und Reflexionen, Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Goethe, Johann W. v. (1998c) Werke, vol. 13: Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften I, Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag. Humboldt, Wilhelm v. (2003) Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts, Wiesbaden: Fourier. Kippenberg, Hans G. (1997) Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschaft und Moderne, Munich: Beck. Spengler, Oswald (1997) Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte, 13th edition, Munich: Beck. Wißmann, Hans (1997) “James George Frazer”, in: Axel Michaels (ed.): Klassiker der Religionswissenschaft. Von Friedrich Schleiermacher bis Mircea Eliade, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 77–89. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Synthesis 17, 233–253. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979) Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, ed. Rush Rhees, Doncaster: Brynmill Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993a) Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993b) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 115–55. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1994) Bemerkungen über die Farben. Über Gewißheit. Zettel. Vermischte Bemerkungen, 6th edition, Werkausgabe, vol. 8, Frankfurt a. M: Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1995) Wiener Ausgabe, vol. 3: Bemerkungen, Philosophische Bemerkungen, ed. Michael Nedo, Vienna/New York Springer.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1995) Wiener Ausgabe, vol. 4: Bemerkungen zur Philosophie, Bemerkungen zur philosophischen Grammatik, ed. Michael Nedo, Vienna/New York Springer. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1999) Denkbewegungen. Tagebücher 1930–1932 und 1936–1937, ed. Ilse Somavilla, Frankfurt a. M: Fischer. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001) Philosophische Untersuchungen, Kritsch-genetische Edition, ed. Joachim Schulte, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

The Later Remarks

Peter K. Westergaard

Thirteen Loose Sheets of Varying Size On Part II of Bemerkungen über Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” Abstract: Following some text-critical observations on MS 143 – known as Part II of the Bemerkungen über Frazers “The Golden Bough” – it is suggested that the thirteen loose sheets of MS 143 should be divided into two parts, which can be called ‘the frame’ and ‘the central section’. It is argued that the central section has to be viewed as belonging to Wittgenstein’s late remarks on the philosophy of psychology, and consequently that Part II of the Bemerkungen über Frazers “The Golden Bough” must be ascribed to Wittgenstein’s late working years. Wittgenstein’s discussion of Frazer in MS 143 touches upon two issues: the philosophy of psychology in “the central section”, and the philosophy of religion in “the frame”. In order to establish that Wittgenstein renewed his interest in Frazer in his later years, some of his late remarks that take a new angle on magic compared to the familiar remarks of the Bemerkungen are singled out for comment. I read with interest the printed remarks on Frazer. They made a forceful impression on me. I am glad they were published in this form. (I had been a little bit sceptical.) Letter from G. H. von Wright to R. Rhees, 22 September 1967

1 I ntroduction In May/June 1949, two years after resigning his position as professor at Trinity College Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein completed work on TS 234, a typescript known today as “Part II” of the Philosophical Investigations. This was Wittgenstein’s last systematically prepared typescript. Shortly after returning from a visit to the United States in the same year, he was diagnosed with cancer. From that point on, the disease and the treatment he received for it prevented him from working with his accustomed intensity. In the years between then and his death, Wittgenstein lived primarily in Vienna, Oxford and Cambridge. When in Oxford, he stayed at the home of G. E. M. Anscombe. His philosophical work from these final years has survived in the form of several notebooks and sets of loose-leaf notes. Typical of his remarks from this period is that they are all “first-draft material”. They are concerned with a number of themes ranging from epistemology

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to isolated issues in the philosophy of religion and questions of a primarily psychological nature. In addition there are numerous philosophical remarks on the concept of colour. But the bulk of Wittgenstein’s remarks from this final period are devoted to the philosophy of psychology. The thirteen loose sheets that make up Part II of the Bemerkungen über Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” should be dated to these final years and hence viewed in the context of his remarks on the philosophy of psychology. In other words, Wittgenstein’s late remarks on Frazer emerge from a set of intellectual concerns that are very different from those that characterise the fragments of Part I of the Bemerkungen, which we know were written during the summer of 1931 in what has since become known as MS 110. In saying that Part II of the Bemerkungen should be attributed to Wittgenstein’s remarks on the philosophy of psychology, I am thinking first and foremost of the extended remarks on the grammar of an impression, which are pivotal to the central section. But before attempting an analysis of these remarks, I should begin by saying a few words about the loose sheets, known as MS 143, as we find them in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. An inspection of this original material makes it obvious that we need to distinguish the central section from the introductory and concluding material that frames it. Following a discussion of this feature of the material, I shall examine some of the arguments for the late dating of the loose sheets, and consider in particular the fact that, in his final working period, Wittgenstein offered different descriptions of magic than those to be found in the Bemerkungen. This should also make it clear that, in some respects, MS 143 represents only one of many approaches to magic to be found in Wittgenstein’s late writings. Finally, I shall return to my initial text-critical enquiry in order to present a brief and simple account of the aforementioned remark on the philosophy of psychology that stands at the centre of Bemerkungen Part II. And I should add that, in maintaining that the loose sheets of MS 143 fall into two parts, which generally speaking are concerned with two different themes, I also wish to assert that Wittgenstein’s late interest in Frazer points in two different directions: on the one hand towards the philosophy of psychology, and on the other towards the philosophy of religion. Before turning our attention to MS 143, I should point out that my dating of Bemerkungen Part II to Wittgenstein’s final years runs counter to the widespread assumption that these notes were written in the early 1930s; “for Wittgenstein was already getting to grips with their basic theme”, writes one author, “namely the fire festivals, in his notes on Moore’s lectures from the academic year 1932– 33. Probably 1933” (Motturi 2003: 282, note 270; see also, e.g. Cioffi 1998: 80–83). This widely held assumption seems to result from a desire to view the two parts of the Bemerkungen as forming a whole, yet this ignores the significant differences between the two parts in terms of style, approach and thematic content. Whereas Motturi et al. assume that the two parts form a continuum, I shall argue that there



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is a striking discontinuity between the parts. And beyond this, my dating also contradicts such assumptions as, for example, that Wittgenstein must have written MS 143 in 1936 (Nedo 1993: 37), or R. Rhees’ initial dating of the text, although I do follow the suggestion that Rhees made in his “Introductory Note” to the Synthese edition of Bemerkungen, to the effect that: “He [Wittgenstein] wrote the second set of remarks – and they are only rough notes – years later [after the first set of remarks], not earlier than 1936 and probably after 1948” (RFGB: 234). For the same reason, I also agree with P. M. S. Hacker and F. Kerr, who argue that Part II was written after 1948 (Hacker 2001: 75; Kerr 1988: 159). But unlike these latter, I seek to provide a justification for this assumption. In other words, in the following I wish to focus on the impression, which even some of the better known and more emotive or expressive readings of Part II refer to in passing – that of S. J. Tambiah being a good example – that many of Wittgenstein’s remarks from his final years can be viewed as responses to Frazer’s Golden Bough (Tambiah 1990: 64). But first, an exploration of the relevant material from a text-critical per­ spective.

2 Of Varying Size The manuscript of Part II of the Bemerkungen consists of thirteen non-paginated loose sheets of two different sizes. As we have seen, the manuscript is referred to as MS 143, and is today in the keeping of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. All the remarks on the loose sheets are written in pencil. Five of these are intact, full-size leaves (height 33 cm, width 21 cm), while a further two are half leaves. All leaves are from a lined notebook. Of these seven sheets, all but one are covered in writing from top to bottom, front and back, thus amounting to thirteen pages of text (MS 143: 4i–10ii). Each of the remaining six loose sheets consists of half of one of the larger sheets (height 16.6 cm, width 21 cm), which has subsequently been folded down the middle, thus producing what look like a small booklet with four smaller pages (height 16.6 cm, width 10.5 cm). The pages of these folded sheets hold amounts of writing that vary from a single remark at the top of a page (MS 143: 13a) to a full page of text. Six pages are entirely blank. Thus these folded sheets account for eighteen pages of text (MS 143: 1a–3d, 11a–13d), consisting of sketch-like remarks that appear to have been written in haste. None of the remarks in MS 143 show any indications of later revision or additions. The only indication of any principle of organisation among this material is a number of references to the pages of the abridged edition of Frazer’s The Golden Bough. These references are fairly evenly distributed, albeit with a notable scarcity in

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the central section of MS 143. With one single exception (MS 143: 2c), the remarks on the loose sheets do not include the frequently quoted sections from Frazer’s work that appear in the various published editions of Bemerkungen. In Rhees’ publication of MS 143 as Part II of the Bemerkungen in the Synthese edition, the loose sheets are arranged and reproduced according to Wittgenstein’s references to Frazer, the first of which is to page 168 (MS 143: 1a), the last to page 681 (MS 143: 13c). All the loose sheets were found by G. E. M. Anscombe among Wittgenstein’s belongings after his death. One striking feature of the MS 143 material is that the first three and the last three loose sheets all have the format of the folded booklets (MS 143: 1a–3d, 11a– 13d), while the seven sheets of the middle section are all left as full, unfolded pages (MS 143: 4i–10ii). As already suggested, this difference in format correlates with a difference in the nature of the remarks on the respective sheets; those contained in the opening and concluding pages are all in the familiar, impressionistic style of the Bemerkungen Part I, whereas the text of the central section constitutes a single, protracted remark presenting a coherent and sustained process of reflection. In other words, the Bemerkungen Part II consists of two different types of text, which are distinguished by, or can be correlated with, the format of the loose sheets and the style of the writing, namely loose, impressionistic remarks in the booklets, and a longer, sustained argument on the full-page sheets. And looking more closely at the actual subject matter of these pages, we see that the booklets are concerned with a discussion and critique of Frazer’s account of magic, while the extended enquiry of the full-page sheets addresses questions relating to the philosophy of psychology. In the following I shall refer to the opening (A) (MS 143: 1a–3d) and concluding (C) (MS 143: 11a–13d) folded sheets as the frame, and the seven full-sized sheets as the central section of Part II (B) (MS 143: 4i–10ii). In detail, the remarks of MS 143 are distributed as follows (Table 1), listed here together with the respective page numbers of Rhee’s Synthese edition and J. Klagge’s Occasions edition of 1993, and Rhee’s later shortened English translation in The Human World, from 1971. Table 1

MS 143

Synthese edition (1967) / Occasions edition (1993)

(A) The frame 1a 1b 1c

168. It is, of course, not so that the people is true only insofar as it generally lies 169. When a man laughs too much in our

245 / 139 245 / 139 245 / 141

Human World edition (1971)



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Table 1: (continued)

MS 143 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3a 3b 3c 3d

BLANK 170. The nonsense here is that Frazer BLANK 171. “… a network of prohibitions and in science there is progress, but in magic 179. How much more truth there is in this BLANK BLANK We find every childlike (infantile) theory

Synthese edition (1967) / Occasions edition (1993)

Human World edition (1971)

245 / 141 246 / 141 246 / 141 246 / 141

37 37

246 / 141

(B) The central section 4i 4ii 5i 5ii 6i 6ii 7i 7ii 8i 8ii 9i 9ii 10i 10ii

614. Besides these similarities, what seems In all these practices one, of course, sees 618. Nothing accounts for why the fire should BLANK Here the hypothesis seems to give the matter nature of the modern practice itself which 619. We see something here that looks like Then the depth lies only in thinking about that then it was a deep and sinister business. I want practices. When I see such a practice, or hear Isn’t that like my seeing a ruin and saying: But couldn’t I just as well ask: If I see someone They simply cast lots so that they would have something terrible about it? – Yes, but what I

246 / 143 246 / 143 246–247 / 143

37 37 37–38

247 / 143 247 / 145 248 / 145 248 / 145 248–249 / 147 249 / 147 249–250 / 149 250 / 149 250–251 / 151 251 / 151

38 38 38–39 39 39–40 40 40–41 41 41 41

(C) The frame 11a 11b 11c 11d 12a 12b 12c 12d 13a 13b 13c 13d

640. One can very well imagine that – and but of a common spirit. And one could invent 641. The connection between illness and dirt infantile theory as its basis 643. That fire was used for purification is (fire – sun), what can be more probable than didn’t know that the thoughts purification and BLANK 680. ‘Soul-stone’. Here one sees how such an BLANK 681. That would point to the fact that here truth makes us appear unworthy or ridiculous in our

251 / 151 251 / 151 251–252 / 153 252 / 153 252 / 153 252 / 153 252 / 153 252–253 / 153 253 / 155 253 / 155

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The text-critical observation that the frame (A and C) differs significantly from the central section (B) in terms of format, style and content raises several questions. One of these is whether the three parts were written around the same time. And if they were not, which parts were written first? The frame (or parts of the frame), or the central section? In other words, the question is whether MS 143 consists of a series of disparate remarks written around the same time, or a record of reflections from different periods. One factor that seems to support the conjecture that the frame and the central section were written at different times is a slight discrepancy in the types of paper used for the respective sections (the original sheets vary both in width and in the spacing of the top and bottom margins). Nevertheless, there are good reasons to suppose that the loose sheets were taken from similar types of notebook. So, MS 143 also differs from the Bemerkungen Part I in terms of the rather disjointed nature of the manuscript as such; by contrast, Bemerkungen Part I was based on typescript TS 211: 313–322, which was already well rounded and polished. The uncertainties summarised in these text-critical observations were no doubt one of the reasons for the frequently overlooked fact that, when he published his translation of the Bemerkungen in The Human World in 1971, Rhees chose to omit the entire frame (A and C), with the exception of one single remark from roughly half way through part A, which he places at the beginning of Part II, insofar as it suggests a bridge between the two parts. The theme of this lone remark is the distinction between magic and science: “As simple as it sounds: the distinction between magic and science can be expressed by saying that in science there is progress, but in magic there isn’t. Magic has no tendency within itself to develop” (MS 143: 2c–d [RFGB: 246]). A few years after this 1971 publication, Rhees wrote in a letter to K. L. Ketner: “When I was preparing this translation for publication I omitted one or two passages which had been published in the German text in Synthese, since they were less directly connected with the main theme than the others” (Rhees 1973, 10.4.1973). One consequence of Rhees’ decision to abridge Part II of the Bemerkungen for the Human World edition – a decision that was emulated by the later Brynmill edition of 1979 – is that there are now various editions of MS 143 in circulation. This is, however, an outcome that ought to have been resolved by Klagge’s 1993 publication of Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, which remains faithful to the text of the Synthese edition and to MS 143 as such. Rhees also expresses his doubts about the various parts of MS 143 in his “Introductory Note” to the Synthese edition, where he cautiously describes the different types of loose sheets as “odd bits of paper” and “the smaller ones”. Following some comments on the possible dating of Bemerkungen Part II, he writes: “They [the rough notes] are written in pencil on odd bits of paper; probably he meant to insert the smaller ones in the copy of



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the one-volume edition of The Golden Bough that he was using” (RFGB: 234). But the doubts are already evident in the typed version of the manuscript, which was presumably Rhees’ own private and initial transcription of MS 143 (the transcription does not include the quotes from The Golden Bough that were added later), for immediately after the final remark of the introductory part of the frame (“We find every childlike (infantile) theory again in today’s philosophy, only not with the winning ways of the childlike” (MS 143: 3d)) Rhees inserts a remark from the concluding part of the frame (“643. That fire was used for purification is clear” (MS 143: 12a)), only to delete it later on. The transcription then continues with the text of the central section, in keeping with the generally accepted order. This indicates that Rhees himself was inclined to regard parts A and C of the text as possibly continuous. But it would seem that he hesitated and eventually retained the editorial decision to order the text according to Wittgenstein’s own references to page numbers in the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, with the result that he obscured the fault lines between the different parts of MS 143, despite the fact that in his own transcription of the loose sheets he had felt compelled to regard parts A and C of the text as related. In other words, Rhees was fully aware of the discontinuities in MS 143 and was himself inclined to isolate the central section from the frame. Rhees preceded his initial eight-page transcription of MS 143 with a number of comments that form a kind of “Preface”, and which he later incorporated into the “Introductory Note” of the Synthese edition. Probably made in summer 1964, Rhees’ transcription is today in the keeping of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. In November of the same year, he wrote to G. H. von Wright: “I am sending you a copy of the early letter to Ramsey, and also of the later notes on Frazer [MS 143], which I have typed from the pencilled pages which Elisabeth [Anscombe] sent me. At least I believe they are later than the 1931 lot. And Elisa­ beth seemed to think they belong to notes which he made while he was living in her house” (Rhees 1964a, 1.11.1964). Rhees prefaces his transcription with the following comment: Wittgenstein: pencilled notes on Frazer, on loose sheets. The numbers on these sheets evidently refer to pages in the abridged edition of The Golden Bough. Wittgenstein’s copy of this was given him by Raymond Townsend in July, 1936. The earlier notes on Frazer were entered in Manuskriptband VI [MS 110], in June, 1931. I doubt if Wittgenstein had a copy of the Golden Bough at that time. Drury has told me that he used to read aloud from Frazer to Wittgenstein. For this reason, I imagine that these pencilled notes are later – after July, 1936, and very likely later still. (Rhees 1964b: 1)

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Let us now summarise these points. One striking feature of MS 143 is that the first three and the last three of the loose sheets are all of the same format, and folded into little booklets (MS 143: 1–3,11–13), while the middle section is made up entirely of the larger, unfolded and mostly full-page sheets (MS 143: 4–10). Corresponding to these differences in size is a difference in the content and style of the remarks; the remarks of the opening and concluding sheets are predominantly in the familiar sketch-like or fragmentary style of the Bemerkungen Part I, whereas the text of the central section of Part II consists of a longer process of uninterrupted reflection, amounting to an extended and coherent enquiry. In other words, Part II of the Bemerkungen consists of two different types of text, which are associated respectively with the different formats and styles of the loose sheets: the fragmentary, sketch-like remarks of the folded sheets and the longer, continuous enquiry of the full-page loose sheets. The content and themes of the two text parts differ accordingly. In the central section Wittgenstein is concerned with questions relating to the philosophy of psychology, while in the folded sheets he deals with questions relating to Frazer’s account of magical practices.

3 Uttering a Curse One of many factors that supports the idea that Wittgenstein wrote Part II of the Bemerkungen in his final years – over and above the correspondence in terms of subject matter between the central section and his late interest in the philosophy of psychology – is that among the many remarks he wrote during this period we find several that focus on the theme of magic. In addition, the late manuscripts contain several observations that touch on or link in with certain ideas in the Bemerkungen, and in particular, those of the early sections of Part I and the later remarks of Part II. In other words, Frazer is someone with whom Wittgenstein actively engages in dialogue in his later years. Let us now take a more detailed look at two examples from Wittgenstein’s late discussions of magical forms of action, both of which illustrate the alternative approach to the description of such phenomena that he is suggesting, and which complement the sketch-like remarks in the frame of Part II, in which he deals with Frazer directly. The first example occurs when Wittgenstein adduces the notion of “uttering a curse against someone” during a discussion of what it involves “to mean something” or “to mean precisely this or that person”. In particular, he focuses on the significance of the personal pronoun “him” as used in a curse. Here the question is whether the person who utters the curse can also doubt whether he meant precisely that person against whom the curse



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was directed. Wittgenstein’s grammatical point in this enquiry is that “to mean something” should not be regarded as an isolated mental act or process that animates language with its ability to carry meaning and its intentionality. The link between the use of words, including here personal pronouns, and their meaning is not established via some mental act – as if the meaning already existed in some mental, non-linguistic sphere prior to its manifestation in language – but is established rather through the use of words and the context in which they are uttered. Thus, the difference between, for example, meaning A rather than B when using the word “him” does not reside in some prior circumstance or something that accompanies the utterance of the phrase “I cursed him!” The fact of meaning A rather than B stands in relation to and is entailed by the many existing conditions, and it is these that guarantee that it is A that is meant. In other words, “to mean someone or something” is internally related “to a wider context” (PI §686). The use of the verb “to mean” thus indicates and implies the wider and often complex horizon within which the verb is used. “Of course I meant B, I did not think of A at all!” (PI §686). The connection between the name and the person to whom the name refers, and thus also the connection between the curse and the person who is cursed, is not established “by means of a mental mechanism. (One compares “meaning him” with “aiming at him”.)” (PI §689). Neither is it established, for example, by thinking “expressly about him” when using his name (PI §690), even though it might be specified as a rule, or as part of the technique or traditional practice of cursing, that one should visualise the targeted person or pronounce his name clearly. It is not, however, any such requirement that establishes the connecting line of meaning, for this latter is already established by the pre-existing frame for the action, which includes all those prior events that lead up to the actual uttering of the curse, which is merely the final link in a long chain of events. To put it another way: “An intention is embedded in its situation, in human customs and institutions. If the technique of the game of chess did not exist, I could not intend to play a game of chess. In so far as I do intend the construction of a sentence in advance, that is made possible by the fact that I can speak the language in question” (PI §337). And yet language, the phrase “to mean this or that person by saying A”, and the formulation and nature of a curse can tempt us to assume that the relation to the person who is meant, or to the victim, is established via the mental act of “meaning”. But the curse can only “hit” the victim, because the words, our thinking and actions, are already embedded in the contexts of everyday language, its rules and institutions, which are what facilitate the connection between a statement and a referent. Wittgenstein’s use of the curse to illustrate his grammatical analysis of “I meant this with the words” runs as follows:

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When you tell me that you cursed and meant N. as you did so it is all one to me whether you looked at a picture of him, or imagined him, uttered his name, or what. The conclusions from this fact that interest me have nothing to do with these things. On the other hand, however, someone might explain to me that cursing was effective only when one had a clear image of the man or spoke his name out loud. But we should not say “The point is how the man who is cursing means his victim.” Nor, of course, does one ask: “Are you sure that you cursed him, that the connexion with him was established?” (PI §§680–681)

The use of the example “to utter a curse on someone” in the Philosophical Investigations indicates not just that, during the 1940s, the various thematic concerns of The Golden Bough were fairly present in Wittgenstein’s mind, it also establishes an approach to the description of magical forms of action which is new and distinct from that of the remarks from the years 1930–31 and from those of the “frame” of the loose-sheet material. Rhees has sketched the outline of this new praxeological account, in which a practice is interpreted not in light of the fact that it “aims at satisfaction and achieves it […] we just behave this way and then we feel satisfied” (RFGB: 237), but rather in consequence of the role that magic plays, or that is assigned to it, in social life. Rhees elaborates: In certain societies, uttering a curse on someone may be a terrible thing. In some this may depend upon the rank or the relationship of the person who utters it: if uttered by a priest or by one’s father it might be terrible, but otherwise less so. When I say it is terrible I refer to the role it would have in that society; to a host of institutions, beliefs and practices which enter when I think of how a curse is taken up and regarded there; to notions of honour and of dignity among the members; to the relations of the victim and his family, and to what he may feel called upon to do now, etc. The “effectiveness” of the curse will depend on the circumstances or the culture in which it is uttered. (Rhees 1984: 77–78)

Another and similarly new perspective on magic that emerges around the same time as MS 143 is to be found in Wittgenstein’s remarks on “experiencing a word” (PI: IIxi, 216). More specifically, it is apparent in Wittgenstein’s discussion of the experience, or the impression, we have in using a word. Wittgenstein’s interest in the phenomenon of the experience of a word is apparent in a number of contexts in which the term “atmosphere” occurs. For example, he offers a general “natural history” description, which suggests that our relation to language is such as to make us susceptible to the experience of a word. The fact that words elicit certain impressions and feelings in us is simply how things are. And the reason why, for example, the words of a poet touch us is that they are entangled in and linked to the stream of life. “A poet’s words can pierce us. And that is of course causally connected with the use that they have in our life. And it is also



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connected with the way in which, conformably to this use, we let our thoughts roam up and down in the familiar surroundings of the words” (Z §155). But the phenomenon is also a result of the special relationship we have with language. We live our lives in and through language. We are at home in it. We are our language. We are so intimately connected with words and language that the mere entertaining of an indecent thought can cause us shame (RPP I: §891). Examples such as these illustrate what we mean when we say that a word or phrase can contain “a whole world”. “‘Fare well!’ ‘A whole world of pain is contained in these words.’ How can it be contained in them? – It is bound up with them. The words are like an acorn from which an oak tree can grow” (CV: 52). A word or phrase can be a node that ties together and unifies an extensive network of experiences, feelings and thoughts. In addition to this, Wittgenstein points out that words often appear to us in such a way that we can be misled into thinking that their meanings are somehow inherent in the words themselves. For when we actually use a word, we often have the impression that its meaning is contained in the word itself. Words have the appearance of being meaningful in themselves, independent of their use. Or, as Wittgenstein puts it in the Philosophical Investigations: “The familiar physiognomy of a word, the feeling that it has taken up its meaning into itself, that it is an actual likeness of its meaning” (PI: IIxi, 218). He illustrates this feature of a word’s appearance by referring to how we perceive the name Schubert. We experience the name as more than just a label for a person. For us, the name Schubert appears to embody its referent: ““I feel as if the name ‘Schubert’ fitted Schubert’s works and Schubert’s face”” (PI: IIxi, 215). “The name turns into a gesture; into an architectonic form” (RPP I: §341). By pointing out this “meaning-absorbing” feature of the way words appear to us, Wittgenstein shows us something about how we experience words in general, what kind of impression words make on us. The way in which we assimilate language and meaning is so profound that in some cases words and signs appear to us as inextricably linked to the things they refer to. In our everyday use of language, we do not perceive words as mere signs with meanings attached to them. We experience or see them as embodiments or manifestations of what they refer to. Or, as he put it in 1949, this time alluding to the concept of “atmosphere”: “The name Schubert, shadowed around by gestures of his face, of his work. – So there is an atmosphere after all? – But one cannot think of it as separate from him. The name S. is surrounded in that manner, at least if we are talking about the composer. But these surroundings seem to be fused with the name itself, with this word” (LW II: 4). Here the name or the word as such is described as being “like a mirroring” of its implied ramifications. Elsewhere he gives another example, which also contains a reference to magic. He writes:

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Goethe’s signature intimates something Goethian to me. To that extent it is like a face, for I might say the same of his face. It is like mirroring. […] Or do I ‘identify’ the signature with the person in that, e.g. I love to look at the signature of a beloved human being, or I frame the signature of someone I admire and put it on my desk? (Magic that is done with pictures, hair etc.). (RPP I: §336)

The closing remark here forms a critical link to the accounts of homoeophatic and contagious magic in The Golden Bough. It introduces the possibility of a new way of describing magical forms of action that was lacking in the Bemerkungen, and which focuses primarily on the fact that words and sentences often appear to us to embody the things to which they refer. The basis for magical forms of action is not, as Frazer claimed, certain principles or laws, but a particular aspect of the way we experience language. Wittgenstein writes: “Consider that people believe so firmly in a connection between a name and the person named, that they do magic with the name in order to harm the named person” (MS 179: 15r). The two above-mentioned references to magic from the late manuscripts are by no means the only ones. There are many others. Furthermore, a number of terms and allusions that occur frequently in the late manuscripts are also to be found in MS 143; these include, for example, the terms “evidence” and “ruins” and allusions to “dramatic presentation” and “hypocrisy”. And finally, the later manuscripts contain several remarks that show a thematic overlap with those of the Bemerkungen, or which address a particular aspect of the themes discussed in MS 143. These remarks seem to be echoes from a re-reading of The Golden Bough. Let us now look at a few examples of these allusions to Frazer. All of them are from the manuscripts Wittgenstein wrote in his final years. In the context of an attempt to clarify the necessary preconditions for and features of a vow, Wittgenstein mentions in passing: “A vow could be called a ceremony. (Baptism, even when it is not a Christian sacrament.) And a ceremony has an importance all its own” (MS 137: 46 [RPP II: §581]). A related allusion to ceremonial or ritual practices stems from a few years earlier, when Wittgenstein proposed that we should compare the process of mathematical calculation with a ritual action (MS 163: 78). And perhaps Wittgenstein was thinking to some extent of the distinction that he mentions in Part I of the Bemerkungen between “what might be called animal activities, such as ingestion, etc. […] [and] actions which bear a characteristic peculiar to themselves, and these could be called ritualistic actions” (RFGB: 239– 240) when making the following observation some years later: Two people are laughing together, say at a joke. One of them has used certain somewhat unusual words and now they both break out into a sort of bleating. That might appear very extraordinary to a visitor coming from quite a different environment. Whereas we find it completely reasonable.



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(I recently witnessed this scene on a bus and was able to think myself into the position of someone to whom this would be unfamiliar. From that point of view it struck me as quite irrational, like the responses of an outlandish animal.)” (MS 137: 136 [CV: 78])

Next, it seems reasonable to assume that Wittgenstein was thinking of The Golden Bough’s accounts of the religious worship of trees, a theme also addressed in Part I of the Bemerkungen (RFGB: 244), when he wrote the following remark in MS 134: “I could imagine somebody might admire not only real trees, but also the shadows or reflections that they cast, taking them too for trees” (CV: 57). A consideration of what is involved in consulting an oracle seems to underlie the following remark from 1951, which also includes a reflection on the earlier critique of Frazer; the subject matter here is our reasons for believing propositions: Supposing we met people who did not regard that as a telling reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it? – If we call this “wrong” aren’t we using our language game as a base from which to combat theirs? (MS 176: 73 [OC §609])

The claim that magical forms of action tend to coexist with the practical insights of the primitive mind-set is something Wittgenstein must have had in mind when, the previous year, he wrote in MS 175: “People have killed animals since the earliest times, used the fur, bones etc. etc. for various purposes; they have counted definitely on finding similar parts in any similar beast” (MS 175: 29 [OC §284]). Another remark from the same year compares the distinctive features of philosophy with the scientific disciplines and their development: “Philosophy hasn’t made any progress? – If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress?” (MS 174: 10 [CV: 86]). This is a type of comparison familiar to us from the Bemerkungen, only in the present case, philosophy has come to substitute magic. And finally we are reminded of the point that Wittgenstein makes in MS 143, about the tendency of the Scottish Fire Festivals to combine a mood of elation with actions of a darker nature, when reading the following remark from 1949: “The concept of a ‘festivity’. We connect it with merrymaking; in another age it may have been connected with fear and dread” (MS 137: 137 [CV: 78]).

4 Like Seeing a Man It would seem we know of no clear reason why Wittgenstein returned to The Golden Bough during this late phase of his authorship. But when we consider

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the somewhat uneven character of the thirteen loose sheets of Part II of the Bemerkungen, it seems likely that a number of factors were involved. The impressionistic observations of the opening and concluding sections (A and C) seem to be closely related, in terms of both form and content, to the remarks in Part I of the Bemerkungen. By contrast, the text of the central section (B), which constitutes a lengthy, sustained enquiry, seems to point us in a new and completely different direction, namely towards the more extensive remarks on the philosophy of psychology. When we consider the fact that the final manuscripts from the years 1949–51 contain significantly more remarks on questions of religion and related themes than the notebooks of the preceding years, then the rereading of Frazer would appear to be a natural consequence of Wittgenstein’s late preoccupation with the analysis of religious language. The earlier, indirect critique in Part I of the Bemerkungen of, for example, the observations of the Vienna Circle (Rothhaupt 2008: 152–153) has here been set aside, and in its place Wittgenstein pursues some rather more desultory grammatical explorations, wandering between questions ranging from predestination (MS 137: 130–131; MS 138: 13–14; MS 174: 7–8; MS 175: 56), belief (MS 169: 61; MS 173: 192) and proofs of God’s existence (MS 138: 30; MS 173: 192; MS 174 1–2) through to the acquisition of religious language and how it relates to various types of experience (MS 138: 30–31; MS 173: 192–193; MS  174: 1–2, 24; MS 175: 63). These enquiries add new religious-philosophical aspects to Wittgenstein’s writings, which presuppose the perspectives, with their many ramifications, that he establishes in his late philosophy. In the course of these investigations, Wittgenstein briefly turns his attention once again to Frazer’s Golden Bough. And in doing so, he also becomes preoccupied with the notion of the impression that remains with him after reading the accounts of the Scottish Fire Festivals. In this way, his interest shifts from the philosophy of religion (in sections A and C) to the philosophy of psychology (in the central section B); from an exploration of the grammar of religious language to a more sustained enquiry into the grammar of impressions, but without at any point losing sight of The Golden Bough. Turning now to the philosophical-psychological reading of the central section of Bemerkungen Part II, I shall set aside the sketch-like remarks of the frame, which deal directly with Frazer’s descriptions of homoeopathic and contagious magic, with his intellectualism, and his evolutionary account of magic and religion. What the central section sets out to do is map the grammar of a type of impression, namely the impression of the deep and the sinister which attaches to the practice of the Beltane Fire Festival. What Wittgenstein is concerned with here is a philosophical-psychological question about the nature of the impression and the rules or criteria of evidence that it presupposes. And the decisive locus in the grammatical description of this impression is the following remark: “When I see



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such a practice, or hear of it, it is like seeing a man speaking harshly to someone else over a trivial matter, and noticing from his tone of voice and facial expression that this man can on occasion be terrible. The impression that I receive here can be very deep and extraordinarily serious” (RFGB: 249). Here the dialogue with Frazer has receded into the background. Instead, space is given to an extended enquiry, which from a general perspective seeks to establish the grammar of the impression, partly by identifying the formal and structural characteristics of the Scottish Fire Festivals that are decisive in arousing in us an impression of something deep and dark, and partly by clarifying the nature of the impression as based in “our own feelings and thoughts” (RFGB: 246). These two approaches are internally related. Seen from this perspective, the subject matter has little to do with anthropology or the philosophy of religion. The assumed horizon is rather Wittgenstein’s late attempts to clarify the conditions or criteria that must apply for me to say “I know …” – meaning: I can determine or say something about – another person’s feelings and psychological states. In this respect, one of the central and implicit questions behind the reflections of Part II is: When am I entitled to claim, and what is the point of departure for a meaningful assertion, that “I know” or “I have the impression” that a particular person is angry, anxious, sad or is expressing a sincere or genuine feeling? The question is essentially about the criteria for the meaningful use of psychological terms and the contexts in which they occur. It is questions relating to this area of language, observations and descriptions thereof, and the relevant rules of evidence, that form the primary concern of the central section of Part II. For here Wittgenstein is preoccupied with outlining the particular grammar that is operative in the tensions that exist between a ritual and our impression of this kind of practice. And the main question of the analysis is therefore: What is it that produces the impression of something deep and sinister in the Beltane Festival? In other words, in the analysis in Part II of Bemerkungen, the behaviour of another person, and the characteristics thereof, are replaced by the evidence of the ritual as such or by reports about the ritual of the Fire Festival and the rules that govern it. Here “evidence of the other person’s behaviour – observer’s impression” is equated with “evidence of the ritual’s practices – observer’s impression”. Thus there is a relationship between, on the one hand, Wittgenstein’s account of the experience of seeing that another person’s “look was sinister and black”, or that “he has a black look” (Z §506) or of having the impression that “he looked at me with a strange smile” (LW I: §377), and, on the other, the treatment of this theme in Part II of Bemerkungen, where the focus is simply shifted onto the rules of evidence behind the experience or impression of something deep or sinister that “attaches” to the Fire Festivals. Consequently, what is being equated here can be summed up roughly as follows: The way we relate to the Fire Festivals corresponds to the way we relate to another person. We

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look at the Fire Festivals in the way we look at another person. The Fire Festivals look at us the way another human being looks at us. The impression the Fire Festivals make on us is comparable to the impression we have when we say of someone “he has a black look”. The primary focus of the central section is thus Wittgenstein’s interest in the impression as such, and the fact that something deep and sinister “attaches” to the Beltane Festivals. The interest is of a grammatical nature. Hence the questions are: What is the nature of the impression? What is it founded upon? What experiential frame does it entail? What kinds of judgement does the impression encompass? What kind of certainty lies in these judgements? Wittgenstein points out that the impression here is of an entirely different nature from the impressions and understanding of the Beltane Festival, which are grounded in what he summarily calls “thought” (RFGB: 251). Here Wittgenstein is thinking of the impressions or the forms of understanding that presuppose rules of evidence of a different kind from those that apply especially in connection with the use of psychological concepts, namely the impressions or the understanding that occur in connection with thoughtful observation, interpretation, the framing of hypotheses, the making of inductive and deductive inferences, the assessment of probabilities and explanations of a historical-genetic nature. The type of impression that Wittgenstein seeks to illuminate in Part II of Bemerkungen is one that occurs in a context where the rules of evidence are of a different kind than those that apply to thoughts. By distinguishing between impressions that are grounded in “thought” and impressions that are not grounded in an intellectual act or interpretation – namely those that are based on “non-hypothetical, psychological” (RFGB: 248) evidence – Wittgenstein presupposes and raises several central issues from the philosophy of psychology. These include assessments relating to “the phenomenon of immediate insight or impression” that arise in interpersonal relationships and not least in conjunction with the impression we have of other people’s facial expressions. It is pointed out that the use of terms such as joy, anger, regret and sadness are not always based on a thoughtful observation or an interpretation of clear evidence of the respective emotion. “We see emotion.” – As opposed to what? – We do not see facial contortions and make inferences from them (like a doctor framing a diagnosis) to joy, grief, boredom. We describe a face immediately as sad, radiant, bored, even when we are unable to provide any other description of the features. – Grief, one would like to say, is personified in the face. (Z §225)

And one would like to add, in continuation of my suggested reading: the deep and the sinister is “personified” in the Fire Festivals.



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Acknowledging these characteristics of the immediate impression and those of its contrary – the impression that has a basis in “thought” – the question arises: under what conditions do such impressions occur? What rules of evidence are applicable in connection with the immediate impression? What horizon or experiences do we have to assume as conditions for the impression? It is this latter question in particular that Part II of the Bemerkungen addresses by adducing that the impression of the deep and sinister is grounded in “our own feelings and thoughts” (RFGB: 246). Or, as he also writes: Yes, but what I see in those stories is nevertheless acquired through the evidence, including such evidence as does not appear to be directly connected with them, – through the thoughts of man and his past, through all the strange things I see, and have seen and heard about, in myself and others. (RFGB: 251)

These quotations from the central section of Part II of Bemerkungen presuppose, allude to, and thematise Wittgenstein’s analysis of “rules of evidence”, “imponderable evidence” (PI: IIxi, 228), “subjective certainty” (PI: IIxi, 225) and “Menschenkenntnis” (PI: IIxi, 227) – and hence also his analysis of practical reason or judgement, which is grounded in precisely the experience we have accumulated from “our own feelings and thoughts” and from “all the strange things I see, and have seen and heard about, in myself and others” – that practical reason or judgement that is not acquired “by taking a course in it [Menschenkenntnis], but through ‘experience’” (PI: IIxi, 227). It is this horizon of experience and the practical reason or judgement associated with it that Wittgenstein outlines in his analysis of “imponderable evidence” and “subjective certainty”, and which he has in mind in the account he gives in Bemerkungen of the immediate impression of the deep and sinister in the Beltane Festival. In this fire festival, darkness is “personified” in the ritual actions, just as grief is personified in the human face. In both cases the impression arises as a consequence of our “Menschenkenntnis”. Indeed, how is it that in general human sacrifice is so deep and sinister? For is it only the suffering of the victim that makes this impression on us? There are illnesses of all kinds which are connected with just as much suffering, nevertheless they do not call forth this impression. No, the deep and the sinister do not become apparent merely by our coming to know the history of the external action, rather it is we who ascribe them from an inner experience. (RFGB: 249)

My thanks to Peter Cripps for his translation of this article.

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References Cioffi, Frank (1998) Wittgenstein on Freud and Frazer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacker, Peter M. S. (2001) “Developmental Hypotheses and Perspicuous Representations: Wittgenstein on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Peter M. S. Hacker: Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 74–97. Kerr, Fergus (1988) Theology after Wittgenstein, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Motturi, Aleksander (2003) Filosofi vid mörkrets hjärta. Wittgenstein, Frazer och vildarna, Göteborg: Glänta Produktion. Nedo, Michael (1993) “Ludwig Wittgenstein. Leben und Werk”, in: Wiener Ausgabe. Einführung, Vienna: Springer, 9–47. Rhees, Rush (1964a) “Letter to G. H. von Wright” (1.11.1964), Cataloguesignature: Coll. 714.200, The National Library of Finland, Helsinki. Rhees, Rush (1964b) “Wittgenstein: pencilled notes on Frazer, on loose sheets” (8pp.), Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. Rhees, Rush (1973) “Letter to K. L. Ketner” (10.4.1973), The von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives, Helsinki. Rhees, Rush (1982) “Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual”, in: Brian McGuinness (ed.): Wittgenstein and His Times, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 69–107. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (2008) Kreation und Komposition. Philologisch-philosophische Studien zu Wittgensteins Nachlass (1929–1933), Munich. Tambiah, Stanley J. (1990) Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Von Wright, Georg Henrik (1967) “Letter to R. Rhees” (22.9.1967), The von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives, Helsinki. Westergaard, Peter K. (2011a) “A Note on a Remark: ‘The Atmosphere of a word is its use’”, in: Christoph Jäger and Winfried Löffler (eds.): Epistemology: Context, Values, Disagreement, Neulengbach, 323–325. Westergaard, Peter K. (2011b) “Om Wittgenstein, Frazer og ‘den overskuelige fremstilling’” [On Wittgenstein, Frazer and “perspicuous representation”], in: Tim Jensen and Mikael Rothstein (eds.): Den sammenklappelige tid, Copenhagen: Forlaget Chaos, 51–60. Westergaard, Peter K. (2013a) “A Note on Part II of Remarks on Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’”, in: Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, Volker A. Munz, and Annalisa Coliva (eds.): Mind, Language and Action, Neulengbach, 456–458. Westergaard, Peter K. (2013b) Mennesket er et ceremonielt dyr. Ludwig Wittgensteins Bemærkninger om Frazers “Den gyldne gren” [Man is a ceremonial animal. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”], Copenhagen: Forlaget Anis. Westergaard, Peter K. (2015a) “A Note on the Origin of Rhees’ Synthese Edition of Bemerkungen über Frazers ‘The Golden Bough’, in: Christian Kanzian, Josef Mitterer and Katharina Neges (eds.): Realism, Relativism – Constructivism, Neulengbach, 337–340. Westergaard, Peter K. (2015b) “On the “Ketner and Eigsti Edition” of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’”, in: Nordic Wittgenstein Review 4, 117–142. Wittgenstein, Ludwig: MS 110, TS 211 & MS 143, Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953) Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967a) “Bemerkungen über Frazers ‘The Golden Bough’”, in: Synthese 17, 233–253.



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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967b) Zettel, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969) On Certainty, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1971) “Remarks on Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’”, in: The Human World 3, 18–41. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979) Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, New Jersey: Brynmill Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1984) Culture and Value, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1988a) Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology I, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1988b) Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology II, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1990) Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology I, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1992) Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology II, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (eds.): Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, Indianapolis: Rowman & Littlefield. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000) Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Marco Brusotti

„That they point, is all there is to it.“ Wittgenstein, Frazer, eine „Tatsachensammlung“ und ihre „übersichtliche Darstellung“ Abstract: At some point, the author of The Golden Bough “became conscious” that he had overlooked the “real foundations of his research”. In this remark Wittgenstein probably refers to Frazer’s self-criticism: the Scottish anthropologist attributes unambiguous precedence to his ‘collections of facts’ over his theories and downplays the importance of the ‘official’ principal problem of his book. Does Wittgenstein realize the concordance between his criticism and Frazer’s self-assessment? And does Wittgenstein’s idea of a ‘perspicuous representation’, even though it contains a criticism of Frazer, still follow too closely the ‘comparative method’ of evolutionary anthropology? Gordon Baker denies that Wittgenstein ever thinks of the possibility of giving a ‘perspicuous representation’ of religious rituals. Taking a partly critical stance with regard to Baker’s thesis, I throw new light on Wittgenstein’s intentions. Possible foci for a perspicuous representation are (a) Frazer’s ‘collection of facts’ or (b) the ‘transformations of meaning’ in ritual customs and/or in language. In TS 211 the emphasis is placed on (b). What would a perspicuous representation of ‘Frazer’s collection of facts’ (a) show? Wittgenstein, following Goethe, explains: “And so the choir points to a mysterious law”. He is arguing against Frazer that this is not a hypothetical, empirical, causal, evolutionary-historical law. Are we dealing with a formal universal human ‘principle’ according to which ritual customs are ‘ordered’? On this point the remarks in MS 110 are ambiguous. Moore’s notes on the lectures of May 1933 demonstrate that Wittgenstein develops these critical considerations further. With regard to the ‘choir’ of Frazerian customs, he claims “That they point, is all there is to it”.

1 D  ie „eigentlichen Grundlagen“ des Golden Bough. Frazers Selbstrelativierung in der dritten Ausgabe By discarding the austere form, without, I hope, sacrificing the solid substance, of a scientific treatise, I thought to cast my materials into a more artistic mould and so perhaps

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to attract readers, who might have been repelled by a more strictly logical and systematic arrangement of the facts. Thus I put the mysterious priest of Nemi, so to say, in the forefront of the picture, grouping the other sombre figures of the same sort behind him in the background, […]. (FGB III 1: viii)1

Frazer behauptet, er habe dabei auf „the solid substance“ einer wissenschaftlichen Abhandlung nicht verzichtet: Es sei zuletzt nur eine Frage der Einkleidung, wenn er zugunsten der ‚Erzählung‘ um die geheimnisvolle Gestalt des Priesterkönigs von einer systematischen Anordnung des Stoffs abgesehen habe. Und die Disposition mit dem Dianapriester im Vordergrund habe rein ästhetische Gründe. Der rex nemorensis stehe nicht wegen seiner objektiven Wichtigkeit im Mittelpunkt. Im Gegenteil: Mit seinem „glamour“ (FGB III 1: viii) eigne er sich zur Hauptgestalt des Tableaus, selbst wenn er möglicherweise – wie der Autor freimütig zugibt – in dieses überhaupt nicht gehöre!2

1 Der vorliegende Aufsatz entwickelt einige Themen meiner Monographie Wittgenstein, Frazer und die „ethnologische Betrachtungsweise“ (Brusotti 2014) weiter, blendet aber andere dort ebenfalls ausführlich behandelte aus, u.a. die Beziehungen zu ethnologischen Ansätzen, die 1931 aktueller waren als der des Golden Bough. Der Titel meines Buches darf nicht missverstanden werden: Wittgenstein hat 1931 – zur Zeit seiner ersten Auseinandersetzung mit dem Golden Bough – noch keine ‚ethnologische Betrachtungsweise‘ und lernt diese auch nicht von Frazer. – Zu einer ausführlichen Bibliographie über Wittgenstein und Frazer sei auf die genannte Monographie verwiesen. Hier seien nur folgende Arbeiten angeführt: Cioffi 1998; Clack 1999; Bouveresse 2000; Lara 2005; unter den zahlreichen Aufsätzen vgl. Rudich/Stassen 1971; Rhees 1976; Needham 1985; Hacker 1992; Margalit 1992; Phillips 1993; Brusotti 2000, 2007a, 2007b, 2013; Lara 2003; Rothhaupt 2011; Majetschak 2012. Folgende Beiträge heben bereits im Titel die ‚ethnologische Betrachtungsweise‘ (Brusotti 2007a; Durt 2007; Rothhaupt 2011; Hacker 2013) bzw. die ‚anthropologische Betrachtungsweise‘ (Majetschak 2012; Engelmann 2013) hervor. Gebauer 2009 über „Wittgensteins anthropologisches Denken“ berührt die Auseinandersetzung mit Frazer indes nur beiläufig. 2 Frazers allgemeine Hypothese ist, dass in Urzeiten überall Menschenopfer stattfanden: Getötet wurden Könige, die als Verkörperungen von Vegetationsgottheiten galten, und das Opfer (die Tötung des alten und die Einsetzung des neuen Königs) sollte den jährlichen Natur-Zyklus – das Wiederaufleben der Natur nach dem Winter – unterstützen und die Ernte fördern. (Andrew Lang verspottete deshalb Frazers Golden Bough als Covent Garden School of Mythologists. Vgl. etwa Downie 1970: 54. Im Londoner Stadtteil Covent Garden war der Obst- und Gemüsemarkt angesiedelt.) Der Golden Bough kreist um eine grausame Sukzessionsregel, die Frazer für erklärungsbedürftig hält; denn sie schien ihm mit ihrer Unmenschlichkeit im altrömischen Reich auffallend isoliert dazustehen. Es handelt sich allerdings nicht um ein Menschenopfer, sondern um ein Duell: Ein entflohener Sklave pflückte den goldenen Zweig im Wald von Nemi in der Nähe von Aricia und forderte den amtierenden Dianapriester zum Duell auf; besiegte er ihn, wurde er zu dessen Nachfolger: Der ‚Waldkönig‘ war also „[t]he priest who slew the slayer, / and shall himself be slain“ (Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Battle of Lake Regillus; vgl. FGB III 1: 1). Der



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Frazer selbst warnt in der dritten Ausgabe des Golden Bough, man dürfe seiner Spekulation über den geheimnisvollen Dianapriester in Nemi keineswegs „a greater degree of probability than it deserves“ (FGB III 1: ix) einräumen; der Ethnologe „fully acknowledge the slenderness of the foundations on which it rests“. Seine ganze Theorie von eben diesem Priestertum könnte also sehr wohl in sich zusammenbrechen; aber selbst „its fall would hardly shake [Frazer’s; MB] general conclusions as to the evolution of primitive religion and society, which are founded on large collections of entirely independent and wellauthenticated facts.“ (FGB III 1: ix) Die Auflösung des Rätsels um den goldenen Zweig, das auch in der dritten Ausgabe weiterhin den Leitfaden des Golden Bough bietet, deklarieren die Paratexte explizit zur Nebensache. Und ähnlich ergeht es im Grunde den genannten allgemeineren theoretischen Schlussfolgerungen über die „evolution of primitive religion and society“. Sie scheinen Frazer zuletzt unsicher; und die collections of facts sind für ihn eigentlich Selbstzweck. Schließlich bekennt der Ethnologe, er habe seine Theorien im Wesentlichen nur als „Aufhänger“ für seine „Tatsachensammlungen“ (vgl. FGB III 10: xi) benutzt. Mit dieser Selbstkritik nimmt Frazer Wittgenstein vorweg; denn der Philosoph schätzt den Golden Bough vor allem als „Tatsachensammlung“ (MS 110: 256; TS 211: 321), und man könnte seinen Haupteinwand dahingehend reformulieren, es sei nicht legitim, (pseudo)wissenschaftliche Erklärungen als ‚Aufhänger‘ für Tatsachensammlungen zu verwenden. Ist sich Wittgenstein dabei der Konsonanz mit dem Selbstverständnis des Autors bewusst? In die Abridged Edition von 1922 nahm Frazer die drei Vorworte nicht auf. Von seinen Selbstrelativierungen bleibt daher in der einbändigen Ausgabe, auch im Vorwort, keine Spur.3 Hat Wittgenstein also diese Selbst­

Ethnologe nimmt nun an, das Duell, das dem Priester doch eine Überlebenschance einräume, sei eine Abmilderung der ursprünglichen Sitte gewesen, einem Feuerfest, auf dem der Priesterkönig verbrannt worden sei. Im Vorwort zur dritten Ausgabe meint Frazer nun, die allgemeine Hypothese könne stimmen, selbst wenn möglicherweise gerade die Hauptgestalt des Golden Bough, der Dianapriester in Nemi, doch nie zu den geopferten Königen gehört habe und die Sukzessionsregel (das Duell) kein Überlebsel der postulierten urzeitlichen Menschenopfer sei. Zu den vielen bodenlosen Spekulationen und Inkongruenzen im Golden Bough vgl. Leach 1961; Smith 1973; Ackerman 1987; Fraser 1990. 3 Zu den Selbstrelativierungen im Golden Bough vgl. Smith 1973: 344f. Zur Abridged Edition vgl. Smith 1973: 345. Auch wenn selbstkritische Passagen schon in den ersten beiden Ausgaben nicht fehlen (vgl. Brusotti 2014: 205ff.), gebührt der dritten in dieser Hinsicht eine Sonderstellung. Bereits Marett (1920: 178f.) sieht in der Selbstkritik eine spezifische Tendenz der dritten Ausgabe. Zu seinem Urteil vgl. Brusotti 2014: 205.

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relativierungen überhaupt mitbekommen? Unwahrscheinlich ist es nicht: Da in der Abridged Edition Wendungen wie ‚collections of facts‘ nicht anzutreffen sind, dürfte Wittgensteins Ausdruck ‚Tatsachensammlung‘ eine Reminiszenz der vollständigen Ausgabe sein.4 Die Stelle von Balder the Beautiful, in der Frazer behauptet, er verwende seine Theorien „chiefly as convenient pegs on which to hang [his] collections of facts“ (FGB III 10: xi), wird der Philosoph schwerlich zur Kenntnis genommen haben. Wenn er von „der Frazerschen Samm Tatsachensammlung“ (MS 110: 256; vgl. TS 211: 321) redet, dürfte er eher an den ersten Band der dritten Ausgabe anknüpfen. Hier relativiert Frazer, der auch auf seine allgemeineren Theorien skeptisch blickt,5 insbesondere seine Konjektur über das Dianapriestertum in Nemi. Im selben Satz, in dem er die eigenen collections of facts preist, muss er „fully acknowledge the slenderness of the foundations on which it [diese Theorie; MB] rests“ (FGB III 1: ix). Genau an dem Tag, in dem von der „Tatsachensammlung“ die Rede ist, zieht Wittgenstein Frazer als Beispiel eines Wissenschaftlers heran, dem „einmal aufgefallen//zum Bewußtsein gekommen// ist“, dass er bis dahin die „eigentlichen Grundlagen seiner Forschung“ (MS 110: 259) gar nicht bemerkt hat.6 Bezieht sich

4 Drury berichtet über eine gemeinsame Lektüre aus dem ersten Band der full edition, den er aus der Union Library entliehen habe (vgl. Drury 1984b: 119); er habe Wittgenstein in Cambridge „the opening chapters of Frazer’s Golden Bough“ (Drury 1973: x) vorgelesen. Wittgensteins Bemerkungen beschränken sich jedoch nicht auf Themen aus dem ersten Band (vgl. Rothhaupt 1996: 197, Anm. 1; Koritensky 2002: 145f., Anm. 243; Brusotti 2014: 396f.). Der Philosoph, der nach Ende der Vorlesungszeit am 19. Juni 1931 in Wien mit der ersten Niederschrift (MS 110) begann, hatte in der Zwischenzeit weitere Bände der dritten Ausgabe und/oder die Abridged Edition eingesehen. Wenn er in Österreich nur Letztere zur Verfügung hatte, was mir wahrscheinlicher scheint, könnte der Ausdruck „Tatsachensammlung“ eine Reminiszenz aus der gemeinsamen Lektüre mit Drury sein. (Zu den Details vgl. den Anhang in Brusotti 2014: 394ff.) – Die Vorworte der ersten zwei Ausgaben des Golden Bough sind am Anfang der dritten abgedruckt, also in dem Band, den Drury ausgeliehen hatte. Wittgenstein waren diese aufeinanderfolgenden Selbstdarstellungen leicht zugänglich – anders als das Vorwort zu Balder the Beautiful (siehe oben im Text). 5 “No one can be more sensible than I am of the risk of stretching an hypothesis too far, of crowding a multitude of incongruous particulars under one narrow formula, of reducing the vast, nay inconceivable complexity of nature and history to a delusive appearance of theoretical simplicity.“ (FGB III 1: x) Zu Stellen wie dieser vgl. Stocking 1995: 147. 6 “Die eigentlichen Grundlagen seiner Forschung fallen dem Menschen gar nicht auf. Es sei denn daß ihm d i e s einmal aufgefallen/zum Bewußtsein gekommen/ ist (Frazer etc. etc.) | Und das heißt, das Auffallendste (Stärkste) fällt ihm nicht auf.“ (MS 110: 259; vgl. TS 211: 283; TS 212: 1157; TS 213: 419) – Fraser (1990: 206f.) zufolge bemerkt Wittgenstein nicht, dass Frazer die Ungewissheit der induktiven Methode stark empfindet. Eine derartige Empfindung ist aber bei einem Wissenschaftler nicht selten. Viel unüblicher ist Frazers Geringschätzung des theoretischen Aspekts. – In der Wittgenstein-Forschung steht der Golden Bough immer wieder stellvertretend



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Wittgenstein hier auf Frazers Selbstkritik? Es sieht fast so aus, und Wittgenstein könnte Frazers Paratexte tatsächlich so gedeutet haben.

2 K  ann man Rituale übersichtlich darstellen? Frazers „Tatsachensammlung“ und die „Wandlungen der Bedeutung“: Die erste Fassung der Bemerkungen (MS 110) und die Abschrift (TS 211) Ein Text wie das Vorwort der dritten Ausgabe kann Wittgenstein auf die Idee gebracht haben, dass Frazer sich über sein Projekt im Unklaren war. Das „Gruppenbild“, das der Ethnologe selbst in Frage stellt, verweist uns aber auch darauf, dass Frazers „Tatsachensammlung“ ein Sammelsurium von Disparatem und Heterogenstem ist. Hier treten gravierende Probleme auf, die nicht allein den Golden Bough, sondern allgemeiner die darin eingesetzte vergleichende Methode der evolutionären Anthropologie radikal in Frage stellen. Schon Anfang des vorigen Jahrhunderts durchschaute Dewey dieses jetzt lange untergegangene Paradigma ethnologischer Forschung: Die evolutionäre Anthropologie reiße einzelne Tatsachen aus ihrem jeweiligen Kontext und stelle sie mosaikartig zusammen, indem sie von der spezifischen Gesellschaft, Kultur und Umwelt absehe, zu der sie jeweils gehörten.7

für „a scientific text“ (Rudich/Stassen 1971: 84); er möge zwar schon lange überholt sein, aber Frazers Untersuchung sei „unambiguously empirical“ (Cioffi 1998: 12) und die Hauptfrage des Buches „ostensibly empirical“ (Cioffi 1998: 2). Diese Behauptung steht in merkwürdigem Gegensatz zur wissenschafts- und kulturhistorischen Wahrnehmung, gilt Frazer sonst doch eher als ein Forscher, der eigentlich keine fokussierte Frage und daher auch keine Antwort hatte (Smith 1973), und der Golden Bough als ein Buch, das die Leser intuitiv als Literatur wahrgenommen haben (vgl. Vickery 1973: 8). Als Musterbild eines (wenn auch veralteten) wissenschaftlichen Werks ist der Golden Bough auf jeden Fall denkbar ungeeignet. Dennoch war Frazer für Wittgenstein auch ein Stellvertreter: Der Philosoph sah in ihm den „dummen Wissenschaftler“ (MS 143: 27), der (wie bereits Renan) den „dumme[n] Aberglaube[n] unserer Zeit“ (MS 110: 197f.) beispielhaft verkörperte. Frazer war für Wittgenstein jedoch kein reiner Empiriker. Und schon aus dem Gesagten dürfte klar hervorgehen, dass der Golden Bough ein eigentümliches, ja mit allen seinen Schwächen einzigartiges Werk ist und nicht einfach eine (überholte) ethnologische Abhandlung. Vgl. dazu ausführlich Brusotti 2014: 202ff. 7 “Facts are torn loose from their context in social and natural environment and heaped miscel-

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Man darf bezweifeln, dass Wittgenstein 1931 über Grenzen und Abwege der evolutionären Anthropologie und ihrer vergleichenden Methode so gut im Bilde war wie Dewey knapp drei Jahrzehnte zuvor. 1931 erwägt Wittgenstein die Möglichkeit, das im Golden Bough vorgelegte ‚Tatsachen-Material‘ übersichtlich darzustellen. Wie ist nun dieser Vorschlag zu deuten? Hat er auch einen ‚konstruktiven‘ Sinn? Oder belässt es der Philosoph bei einer Frazer-Kritik?8 Im ersteren Fall würde sich die Frage stellen, ob Wittgenstein wirklich allen Unzulänglichkeiten von Frazers Ansatz Rechnung trägt. Lehnt sich das Konzept einer übersichtlichen Darstellung, obwohl es eine Frazer-Kritik beinhaltet, nicht doch allzu eng an den Golden Bough an? Geht es bei Wittgenstein aber tatsächlich darum, Riten übersichtlich darzustellen? Gordon Baker verneint es: „Nothing other than descriptions of grammar are even candidates for being called ‚perspicuous representations‘. Consequently, there is no possibility of identifying […] any observation about a religious ritual […] as a ‚perspicuous representation‘.“ (Baker 2004: 27f.) Folgt aus Bakers erster These wirklich die zweite? Impliziert also die plausible These, dass als übersichtliche Darstellungen nur grammatische Beschreibungen in Frage kommen, den mit der Textlage kaum zu vereinbarenden Schluss, es gebe für Wittgenstein 1931 keine übersichtlichen Darstellungen religiöser Rituale? Man kann Baker zwar

laneously together, because they have impressed the observer as alike in some respect. Upon a single page of Spencer […] appear Kamschadales, Kirghiz, Bedouins, East Africans, Bechuanas, Damaras, Hottentots, Malays, Papuans, Fijians, Andamanese – all cited in reference to establishing a certain common property of primitive minds. […] And yet the peoples mentioned present widely remote cultural resources, varied environments and distinctive institutions. What is the scientific value of a proposition thus arrived at?” (Dewey 1998 [1902]: 11) So kritisiert Dewey 1902 „the abuse of the comparative method“, und seine Argumente entsprechen dem Gegensatz zwischen der amerikanischen Anthropologie (Franz Boas und seiner Schule) und dem britischen Evolutionismus. (Vgl. die Kritik des letzteren in Boas 1896.) Was Dewey hier gegen Herbert Spencer vorbringt, lässt sich mühelos auf Frazer anwenden, dessen Golden Bough ebenfalls eine Cook’s Tour unter den „Amongsthas“ (Stocking 1995: 148) darstellt. 8 Von Anfang an koexistiert bei Wittgenstein die Ablehnung von Frazers Erklärungen mit der Anerkennung für wenigstens eine seiner Beschreibungen – und für den ‚Ton‘, durch den er auf den Leser des Golden Bough Gefühle übertragt. Allerdings sind die Bemerkungen, die Wittgenstein zwischen dem 19. und dem 23. Juni 1931 notiert, oft aggressiv und manchmal verletzend; allmählich indes wird er weniger angriffslustig, und die Bemerkungen zur übersichtlichen Darstellung, die er am 2. Juli 1931 verfasst, sind nicht nur kritisch gemeint, selbst wenn sie die Argumente der früheren wieder aufnehmen und weiterführen. Clack 1999: 135ff. hebt den Unterschied im Ton zwischen der sogenannten ersten ‚Gruppe‘ von Bemerkungen (RFGB I) und der Jahre später verfassten zweiten (RFGB II = MS 143) hervor. Wenn man das Originalmanuskript (MS 110) heranzieht, sieht man freilich, dass Wittgensteins Ton bereits 1931 allmählich freundlicher wird, und zwar binnen weniger Tage.



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dahingehend zustimmen, dass die ‚übersichtliche Darstellung‘, wie Wittgenstein sie in den Frazer-Notaten entwirft, nicht voreilig mit ethnologischen Beschreibungskonzepten gleichzusetzen ist, etwa mit der Ryle abgeschauten ‚dichten Beschreibung‘ von Clifford Geertz. ‚Übersichtliche Darstellung‘ steht in MS 110 nicht für empirische Bemerkungen und überhaupt nicht für Einzelbemerkungen, auch nicht für grammatische, sondern nur für eine ‚morphologische‘ Synopse.9 Aber was wäre hier übersichtlich darzustellen, wenn nicht die im Golden Bough beschriebenen Rituale? Zuerst hatte Wittgenstein ein ganz anderes Modell von ‚übersichtlicher Darstellung‘: Er dachte an das Farben-Oktaeder, das die Farbwörter und die strikten Regeln ihres Gebrauchs übersichtlich darstelle. Die Idee, Kulturerscheinungen morphologisch darzustellen, mag u.a. von der Lektüre der „Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte“ (dies der Untertitel von Spenglers Untergang des Abendlandes) suggeriert sein. Aber Wittgensteins neuer, ‚morphologischer‘ Vorschlag ist im Wesentlichen eine kritische Abwandlung von Frazers vergleichender Methode; diese führt dem Philosophen vor, wie man (angeblich) ähnliche Tatsachen (Riten, Gebräuche) sammelt und ordnet. Gerade weil der Golden Bough immer wieder parallele Beispiele auflistet, sieht Wittgenstein in Frazers vergleichender Methode eine in kausalem Sinn missverstandene Morphologie, die von ihrer entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Einkleidung befreit werden kann; man würde dann die Erscheinungen vergleichend zusammenstellen, aber eben ohne den Anspruch, sie kausal zu erklären. Was ist dabei Gegenstand einer übersichtlichen Darstellung? Die Antwort ist komplexer, als man meinen könnte, und man muss zwischen dem Manuskript, in dem die Bemerkungen über den Golden Bough zuerst aufgezeichnet wurden, und dem Typoskript unterscheiden, in das sie später Aufnahme fanden. In MS 110 geht es – zumindest explizit – nur um Frazers „Tatsachensammlung“ im Ganzen. In den alten Riten haben wir den Gebrauch einer äußerst ausgebildeten Gebärdensprache. Und wenn ich in Frazer lese so möchte ich auf Schritt und Tritt sagen: Alle diese Prozesse diese Wandlungen |der Bedeutung|, haben wir noch in unserer Wortsprache vor uns. Wenn das was sich in der letzten Garbe verbirgt der Kornwolf genannt wird, aber auch |diese

9 Wittgenstein formuliert im Juni 1931 eine Reihe Bemerkungen über Rituale und über Frazers ‚Form der Darstellung‘. Aber nichts weist darauf hin, dass er diese Bemerkungen als übersichtliche Darstellung(en) auffasst. (So dagegen Clack 1999: 61ff. im Anschluss an Bakers Auffassung von ‚übersichtlicher Darstellung‘.) Der Begriff steht hier auch nicht für punktuelle Erinnerungen an den Sprachgebrauch.

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Garbe selbst, und auch| der Mann der sie bindet, so erkennen wir hierin einen uns wohlbekannten sprachlichen Vorgang. Unsere Sprache ist eine Verkörperung alter Mythen. Und der Ritus der alten Mythen war eine Sprache. „Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.“ (Schiller) „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ möchte man zu der Frazerschen Samm Tatsachensammlung sagen. Dieses Gesetz, diese Idee, k a n n ich nun durch eine Entwicklungshypothese ausdrücken/darstellen/ oder auch, analog dem Schema einer Pflanze durch das Schema einer religiösen Zeremonie oder aber durch die Gruppierung des Tatsachen-Materials allein, in einer ‚ü b e r s i c h t l i c h e n‘ Darstellung. Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns von grundlegender Bedeutung. Er bezeichnet unsere Darstellungsform, die Art wie wir die Dinge sehen. (Eine Art der „Weltanschauung“ wie sie scheinbar für unsere Zeit typisch ist. Spengler.) Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das Verstehen, welches eben darin besteht, daß wir die ‚Zusammenhänge sehen‘. Daher die Wichtigkeit des Findens von Z w i s c h e n g l i e dern. Ein hypothetisches Zwischenglied aber soll in diesem Falle nichts tun, als die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Ähnlichkeit, den Zusammenhang, der Ta t s a c h e n lenken. Wie wenn man eine interne Beziehung der Kreisform zur Ellipse dadurch illustrieren wollte/illustrierte/ daß man eine Ellipse allmählich in einen Kreis überführt; a b e r n i c h t u m z u b e h a u p ten, daß eine gewisse Ellipse tatsächlich, historisch, aus einem Kreis e n t s t a n d e n w ä r e (Entwicklungshypothese) sondern nur um unser Auge für einen formalen Zusammenhang zu schärfen. Aber auch die Entwicklungshypothese kann ich als weiter nichts sehen als die/eine/ Einkleidung eines formalen Zusammenhangs. (MS 110: 256f.)

Der Golden Bough – die Frazersche „Tatsachensammlung“ im Singular – ist demnach eine übersichtliche Darstellung oder – genauer – kann als Ganzes in eine solche überführt werden, wenn man von der „Entwicklungshypothese“ (wie auch von anderen Schemata) absieht und ohne weitere Zusätze einfach das ‚Tatsachen-Material‘ gruppiert. Sind aber (auch) die „Wandlungen |der Bedeutung|“ übersichtlich darzustellen? Darüber äußert sich Wittgenstein in MS 110 nicht. Demnach sind die „alten Mythen“ noch heute in einer Sprache verkörpert: Sie leben in unserer Wortsprache weiter. Zuerst kamen sie in den „alten Riten“ zum Ausdruck, und diese waren eine äußerst ausgebildete Gebärdensprache. Riten sind in dieser Optik Sprachen, ja Gebärdensprachen. Die einzelne Gebärde mag für sich genommen keine satzähnliche Syntax aufweisen, aber eine Gebärdensprache ist trotzdem wie jede Sprache artikuliert. Eine äußerst ausgebildete



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Gebärdensprache ist ein höchst komplexes Zeichensystem (‚Kalkül‘) und insofern mit einer Wortsprache vergleichbar; denn „die Gebärdensprache ist/bleibt/ eine Sprache wie jede andere“ (MS 110: 271). Gebräuche, (rituelle) Handlungen, ja ‚Instinkt-Handlungen‘ geraten in den Frazer-Notaten von 1931 nur als Ausdruckshandlungen bzw. Gebärden in den Blick, also nur als Zeichen in einem Zeichensystem. Gepflogenheiten und Handlungen sind hier noch nicht die „Tätigkeiten“, mit denen der Gebrauch der Zeichen „verwoben“ (PU §7) ist. Den pragmatischen Hintergrund des Zeichengebrauchs hat Wittgenstein im Juni-Juli 1931 noch nicht im Blick. Über Begriffe wie ‚Sprachspiel‘ und ‚Fami­ lienähnlichkeit‘ verfügt er damals noch nicht. Die Gebräuche sind noch keine ‚Sprachspiele‘; und der ‚Chor‘ der religiösen Zeremonien bildet noch keine ‚Familie‘, obwohl gerade die Einsichten in die ‚Wandlungen der Bedeutung‘ das spätere Konzept der ‚Familienähnlichkeit‘ vorbereiten (vgl. dazu Brusotti 2014: 98ff., 197f.). Auch in der Maschinenschrift TS 211 gilt es noch nicht, Sprachspiele und ‚Familienbegriffe‘ übersichtlich darzustellen. Gegenstand der übersichtlichen Darstellung sind in TS 211 jedoch (auch) die „Wandlungen der Bedeutung“ etwa in den verschiedenen Gebräuchen, die mit dem Bild des ‚Kornwolfs‘ zusammenhängen. Der Unterschied zu MS 110 besteht indes nicht etwa darin, dass Wittgenstein jetzt neue Bemerkungen hinzufügt.10 In TS 211 sammelt er die Frazer-Notate in einem zentralen Block; aber bereits vor diesem Block verwendet er einige der zitierten Bemerkungen aus MS 110, andere lässt er aus, und so entstehen neue Bezüge: In den alten Riten haben wir den Gebrauch einer äusserst ausgebildeten Gebärdensprache. Und wenn ich in Frazer lese so möchte ich auf Schritt und Tritt sagen: Alle diese Prozesse, diese Wandlungen der Bedeutung, haben wir noch in unserer Wortsprache vor uns. Wenn das, was sich in der letzten Garbe verbirgt, der Kornwolf genannt wird, aber auch diese Garbe selbst, und auch der Mann der sie bindet, so erkennen wir hierin einen uns wohlbekannten sprachlichen Vorgang. Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns von grundlegender Bedeutung. Er bezeichnet unsere Darstellungsform, die Art, wie wir die Dinge sehen. (Eine Art der ‚Weltanschauung‘ wie sie scheinbar für unsere Zeit typisch ist. Spengler.)

10 Vor Ende Oktober 1931 wurden die Bemerkungen über den Golden Bough vom MS 110 ins Typoskript TS 211 diktiert. Dabei nahm Wittgenstein – abgesehen von Umstellungen und Auslassungen – kaum Änderungen vor. In der fast wörtlichen Abschrift spielen die neuen bedeutungstheoretischen Einsichten, die er in der Zwischenzeit gewonnen hatte, daher keine Rolle. Der theoretische Standpunkt bleibt insofern im Allgemeinen der von Juni–Juli 1931.

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Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das Verstehen//Verständnis//, welches eben darin besteht, dass wir die „Zusammenhänge sehen“. Daher die Wichtigkeit der Z w i s c h e n g l i e d e r. / / des Findens von Z w i s c h e n g l i e d e r n . // (TS 211: 281f.)

Von „der Frazerschen Samm Tatsachensammlung“ (MS 110: 256) ist hier nicht die Rede; die zwei abschließenden Bemerkungen beziehen sich also, wenn überhaupt auf etwas, dann auf die „Wandlungen der Bedeutung“, wie sie in den alten Riten (oder etwa in den Gebräuchen um den ‚Kornwolf‘) und in unserer Wortsprache ähnlich vorkommen. Insofern ist die übersichtliche Darstellung – wie schon das Farben-Oktaeder – eine formale (grammatische) Anordnung sprachlicher Vorgänge.11 Es handelt sich um eine grammatische Untersuchung in Wittgensteins damaligem Stil, und sie soll uns vor allem über unsere eigene Sprache aufklären: Die übersichtliche Darstellung trägt dazu bei, begriffliche Probleme aufzulösen, indem sie Mehrdeutigkeiten und irreführende Analogien aufzeigt. Wittgenstein formuliert damit sein eigenes philosophisches Programm. An anderem Ort – am Ende des zentralen Blocks der Frazer-Notate – stellt der Philosoph weiterhin fest, dass auch Frazers ganze Tatsachensammlung übersichtlich dargestellt werden „ k a n n“ . Während zwei Bemerkungen von MS 110, darunter das Schiller-Zitat, einfach wegfallen, vertritt ein ‚Platzhalter‘ – die Wendung „(zwei Bemerkungen)“ – die zwei anderweitig (TS 211: 281f.) genutzten Aufzeichnungen über die übersichtliche Darstellung.12 Die historische Erklärung, die Erklärung als eine Hypothese xxx der Entwicklung ist nur e i n e Art der Zusammenfassung der Daten – ihrer Synopsis. Es ist ebensowohl möglich, die Daten in ihrer Beziehung zu einander zu sehen und in ein allgemeines Bild zusammenzufassen, ohne es in Form einer Hypothese über die zeitliche Entwicklung zu tun/machen/. Identifizierung der eigenen Götter mit Göttern andrer Völker. Man überzeugt sich davon, dass die Namen die gleiche Bedeutung haben.

11 Den Anfang der endgültigen Fassung bilden dann Sätze, die Wittgenstein schon vor den Bemerkungen über den Golden Bough notiert hatte und zwar zur Zeit der Oktaeder-Darstellung: Demzufolge fehlt es der „Grammatik“, dem „Gebrauch unserer Wörter“ (PU §122), an Übersichtlichkeit. 12 In den verschiedenen Ausgaben der Bemerkungen über den Golden Bough, die v. a. auf TS 211 basieren, werden statt dem Platzhalter die „zwei Bemerkungen“ selbst gesetzt (vgl. RFGB 1995: 37; RFGB 1999: 132). Dass sie in TS 211 in anderem Kontext vorkommen, ist nicht irrelevant: Sie gelangen noch in die Philosophischen Untersuchungen (PU §122), während der zentrale Block der Frazer-Notate in den weiteren Bearbeitungsphasen nicht mehr verwendet wird.



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„Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ möchte man zu der Frazer‘schen Tatsachensammlung sagen. Dieses Gesetz, diese Idee k a n n ich nun durch eine Entwicklungshypothese ausdrücken//darstellen// oder auch, analog dem Schema einer Pflanze, durch das Schema einer religiösen Zeremonie, oder aber durch die Gruppierung des Tatsachenmaterials allein, in einer „ü b e r s i c h t l i c h e n“ Darstellung. (zwei Bemerkungen) Ein hypothetisches Zwischenglied aber soll in diesem Falle nichts tun, als die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Aehnlichkeit, den Zusammenhang, der Ta t s a c h e n lenken. Wie wenn man eine interne Beziehung der Kreisform zur Elipse dadurch illustrieren wollte//illustrierte//, dass man eine Elipse allmählich in einen Kreis überführt; a b e r n i c h t u m zu behaupten, dass eine gewisse Elipse tatsächlich, historisch, aus e i n e m K r e i s e n t s t a n d e n w ä r e (Entwicklungshypothese) sondern nur um unser Auge für einen formalen Zusammenhang zu schärfen. Aber auch die Entwicklungshypothese kann ich als weiter Nichts sehen, als die/eine/ Einkleidung eines formalen Zusammenhangs. (TS 211: 322)13

Dass die im Golden Bough gesammelten Tatsachen, die religiösen Zeremonien, sprachliche Vorgänge sind, wird hier nicht erwähnt.14 Und nichts weist darauf hin, dass Wittgenstein selbst das „Gesetz“ „ausdrücken“ oder „darstellen“ will, auf das der Golden Bough als Tatsachensammlung deutet; es gibt auch keine Anzeichen dafür, dass der Philosoph das „Buch über Anthropologie“ (MS 110: 198; TS 211: 319), über dessen möglichen Anfang er gelegentlich nachdenkt, mit einem solchen Vorhaben gleichsetzt und dass er in dieser übersichtlichen Darstellung etwa die Aufgabe einer möglichen Ethnologie erblickt. Sein eigenes Programm – eine übersichtliche Darstellung der Wandlungen der Bedeutung – hat er nun bereits in der oben zitierten Passage (TS 211: 281f.) vorgelegt.

13 So schließt der zentrale Block mit den Frazer-Bemerkungen in TS 211. Wittgenstein diktiert hier zuerst aus MS 110: 225 („Die historische Erklärung […] Bedeutung haben.“), überspringt die Aufzeichnungen in MS 110: 253 („Ich könnte mir denken […]“) und schließt unmittelbar die Bemerkungen aus MS 110: 256f. an („Und so deutet […] formalen Zusammenhangs.“). 14 Unmittelbar zuvor heißt es jedoch, dass man die „eigenen Götter mit Göttern andrer Völker“ identifiziert, indem man den jeweiligen „Namen die gleiche Bedeutung“ (TS 211: 322) zuschreibt; und dies ist eindeutig ein sprachlicher Vorgang. Diese kurze Bemerkung stand ursprünglich (in MS 110) mit der übersichtlichen Darstellung in keinem Zusammenhang. Die Kontiguität, die aus dem Diktieren resultiert, birgt nicht unbedingt eine enge thematische Verbindung, selbst wenn sich Zusammenhänge angeben ließen.

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3 „Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee.“ Wie Frazers vergleichende Methode würde auch eine übersichtliche Darstellung der im Golden Bough vorliegenden Tatsachensammlung „auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ weisen. Wie verhält es sich für Wittgenstein mit diesem Gesetz? Wir gehen dieser Frage nach, indem wir die einzelnen Bemerkungen in ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext (MS 110) besprechen. In Goethes Gedicht an Christiane Vulpius über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen heißt es: „Alle Formen sind ähnlich und keine gleichet der andern, Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz, | Auf ein heiliges Rätsel.“15 Wie Goethes Pflanzen sind auch Frazers Riten einander ähnlich, aber nie wirklich gleich. Und das geheime Gesetz? Wittgenstein nimmt damals offenbar an, dass „das Prinzip nach welchem diese Gebräuche geordnet sind“, „ein viel allgemeineres als Frazer es erklärt und in unserer eigenen Seele vorhanden“ (MS 110: 195; TS 211: 317). Ist dieses „Prinzip“ (MS 110: 195) nun das „Gesetz“ (MS 110: 256), auf das Frazers „Tatsachensammlung“ hindeutet? Welchen Status hat dann dieses ‚Gesetz‘ bzw. ‚Prinzip‘? In welchem Sinn ist es ‚geheim‘? Ist es rein hypothetisch? Geht es hier für Wittgenstein überhaupt um eine Hypothese? Auf jeden Fall nimmt er Goethes „geheimes Gesetz“ nicht ganz ohne Vorbehalte auf. Er schickt dem Vers aus der Metamorphose der Pflanzen Schillers Kantianischen Einwand gegen die „Urpflanze“ voraus: „Das ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee. (Schiller)“ (MS 110: 256).16 Wittgenstein scheint dem Einwand beizupflichten: Er selbst nennt das geheime Gesetz, worauf die „Tatsachensammlung“ deutet, eine „Idee“ (MS 110: 256).17 Zur Zeit jenes Gedichtes stellt die Urpflanze für Goethe nicht mehr die Lösung des Rätsels dar; trotzdem spielt sie in Wittgensteins Betrachtungen eine Rolle.

15 Bis auf die letzten Worte notiert sich Wittgenstein diesen Satz aus Goethes Gedicht in MS 137: 97a (LW I, §196). Vgl. zu Goethes Versen sowie im Allgemeinen zu Wittgensteins GoetheRezeption Schulte 1990b. Vgl. auch Rowe 1991; Andronico 1998: 137ff.; Hübscher 1985, insbes. 6ff., 156ff.; Rothhaupt 1996: 158 ff.; Griesecke 2001; Schulte 2003 und die weiteren Beiträge in Breithaupt/Raatzsch/Kremberg 2003. Zu Wittgensteins „Übersicht“ und Goethes Morphologie vgl. auch Baker/Hacker 1980b: 537f. 16 In die Abschrift der Bemerkungen über den Golden Bough (TS 211) nahm Wittgenstein dieses Zitat nicht auf. Unter dem Titel „Glückliches Ereignis“ berichtet Goethe über den von Schiller mündlich vorgebrachten Einwand gegen die Metamorphose der Pflanzen. Vgl. Goethe: WAG II, Bd. 11: 13ff. Zum Quellennachweis vgl. Hallett 1977: 765, vgl. auch 751. Vgl. auch Baker/Hacker 1980b: 538; Rowe 1990: 8f.; Schulte 1990b: 20; Monk 1990: 511 f.; Rothhaupt 1996: 175 f.; Schulte 2003: 59; Nordmann 2003: 100f. 17 Der Schiller-Bezug von ‚Idee‘ ist in TS 211 nur noch implizit und geht in den Ausgaben der RFGB verloren.



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Zuletzt habe Goethe selbst – diktiert Wittgenstein Jahre später – in der Urpflanze „nur eine Idee gesehen, und nichts Wirkliches“ (VW: 310).18 Schillers Satz drückt in dieser Lesart auch die Auffassung des reifen Goethe aus. Wittgenstein scheint also eine komplexe Entwicklung anzunehmen, in der Goethe schließlich die ‚Urpflanze‘ nicht einfach preisgibt, sondern sie in Schillers Sinn umdeutet: nicht mehr als historisch gegeben, sondern als Idee, als Form der Darstellung. „Idee“ heißt bei Schiller ein nicht anschauliches Ordnungsprinzip. Bei Wittgenstein steht das Wort hier für eine Auffassung, für eine Art der Betrachtung. Er macht aus Goethes „Urpflanze“ einfach ein übersichtliches Schema, eine Form der Darstellung. Wittgenstein sieht drei alternative Methoden, „[d]ieses Gesetz, diese Idee“ darzustellen: Man kann sie 1) wie Frazer „durch eine Entwicklungshypothese ausdrücken/darstellen/“, oder 2), ähnlich wie in Goethes Morphologie, „analog dem Schema einer Pflanze durch das Schema einer religiösen Zeremonie“. Man kann aber auch, und dies schwebt Wittgenstein eher vor, jene Idee 3) „durch die Gruppierung des Tatsachen-Materials allein, in einer ‚ü b e r s i c h t l i c h e n‘ Darstellung“ (MS 110: 256f.) ausdrücken. Letztere sieht „die Daten in ihrer Beziehung zueinander“ und fasst sie „in ein allgemeines Bild“ (MS 110: 225; TS 211: 321) zusammen. Geht es hier um drei alternative Formen übersichtlicher Darstellung?19 Schreibt Wittgenstein dem „Schema“ (einer religiösen Zeremonie) eine ähnliche Rolle zu wie dem Farbenoktaeder, das die grammatischen Regeln der Farbwörter übersichtlich darstellt? Die Form der Darstellung, die er hier mit Goethes Morphologie verbindet, macht auf jeden Fall andere, aber nicht weniger anspruchsvolle Voraussetzungen als Frazers genetische Darstellung. Wittgenstein scheint hier Goethes Morphologie, die sich als einzige eines Schemas bedient, und seine eigene „Darstellungsform“ – die übersichtliche Darstellung – als zwei unterschiedliche, ja alternative Methoden zu betrachten. Auch Wittgenstein will die in

18 Zu diesem Diktat an F. Waismann („Überblick beruhigt“, [F90]) vgl. Brusotti 2014: 245ff. In einem wahrscheinlich auf Mitte August 1816 zu datierenden Briefentwurf Goethes an Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck heißt es: „In den Tagebüchern meiner Italiänischen Reise […] werden Sie, nicht ohne Lächeln, bemerken, auf welchen seltsamen Wegen ich der vegetativen Umwandlung nachgegangen bin; ich suchte damals die Urpflanze, bewußtlos, daß ich die Idee, den Begriff suchte wonach wir sie uns ausbilden könnten“ (wohl Mitte August 1816, in Goethe: WAG IV, Bd. 27: Briefe 1816: 144). Zu einer ähnlichen Deutung bei Cassirer vgl. Brusotti 2014: 235, Anm. 375. 19 Baker ist dieser Ansicht: Unter ‚übersichtlicher Darstellung‘ verstehe Wittgenstein hier „not merely the ordering or rearrangement of descriptions of phenomena, but also comparisons with a centre of variation and fictional accounts of evolutionary development“ (Baker 2004: 50).

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ihrer Beziehung zueinander gesehenen „Daten“ in ein „allgemeines Bild“ zusammenfassen. Aber er will offenbar ohne „das Schema einer religiösen Zeremonie“ auskommen: also ohne ein Analogon der Urpflanze (und des Oktaeders).20 Die übersichtliche Darstellung ist einfach eine „Gruppierung des TatsachenMaterials“ (MS 110: 256; TS 211: 321): Statt kausale Zusammenhänge zu enthüllen, macht diese „Synopsis“ (MS 110: 225; TS 211: 321) rein formale sichtbar. „Aber auch die Entwicklungshypothese kann ich als weiter nichts sehen als die/eine/ Einkleidung eines formalen Zusammenhangs.“ (MS 110: 257; TS 211: 322) Selbst die historische Erklärung ist „nur e i n e Art der Zusammenfassung der Daten – ihrer Synopsis“. Auch sie gestattet lediglich, „die Daten in ihrer Beziehung zueinander zu sehen und in ein allgemeines Bild zusammenzufassen“; nur faßt sie die Daten „in Form einer Hypothese über die zeitliche Entwicklung“ (MS 110: 225; TS 211: 321) zusammen. Die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Erklärung gelangt also über die Daten ebenso wenig hinaus wie die übersichtliche Darstellung. Angebliche kausale Zusammenhänge stellen sich als bloße „Einkleidung“ von formalen heraus, von Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschieden. Zu den „Daten“ kommt in der historischen Erklärung nur eine „Einkleidung“ hinzu, und dieser hypothetische Zusatz kann ersatzlos wegfallen. „Ich glaube daß das Unternehmen einer Erklärung schon darum verfehlt ist weil man nur richtig zusammenstellen muß, was man w e i ß und nichts dazusetzen und die Befriedigung die durch die Erklärung angestrebt wird ergibt sich von selbst.“ (MS 110: 179f.) Was sich dabei ergibt, lässt sich am ehesten mit einem Aspektwechsel vergleichen: Man sieht nun jene Riten mit anderen Augen, man nimmt bis dahin unbemerkte (formale) „Zusammenhänge“ wahr. „Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das Verstehen, welches eben darin besteht, daß wir die ‚Zusammenhänge sehen‘. Daher die Wichtigkeit der Z w i s c h e n g l i e d e r. // des Findens von Z w i s c h e n g l i e d e r n . // “ (MS 110: 257; TS 211: 282; TS 213: 417) Und auch des „Erfindens“ (PU §122) letzterer, wie die endgültige Fassung ausdrücklich betont. Auf die tatsächliche Existenz dieser Zwischenglieder kommt es nämlich nicht an: Sie sind nur Hilfsmittel, sie müssen rein formale Zusammenhänge sichtbar machen. (Ähnliches gilt für die parallel cases: Auch sie sind „Vergleichsobjekte“.) Man darf sie zu diesem Zweck auch erfinden: „Ein hypothetisches Zwischenglied aber soll in diesem Falle nichts tun, als die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Ähnlichkeit, den Zusammenhang, der Ta t s a c h e n lenken.“ (MS 110: 257; TS 211: 322) Die morphologischen Zwischenglieder sind nicht in demselben Sinn ‚hypothetisch‘

20 Wie P. M. S. Hacker bemerkt, „he gives no hint as to what such a schema [einer religiösen Zeremonie; MB] might be“ (Hacker 1992: 294).



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wie die missing links der Evolutionstheorie.21 Letztere sind genetische, kausale Hypothesen. Auch die morphologischen Zwischenglieder mögen auf den ersten Blick so aussehen; aber sie sind in Wirklichkeit nur formale Möglichkeiten. Es kommt nicht darauf an, ob sie wirklich existieren.22 Dieselbe Erscheinung kann freilich als Bindeglied in der genetischen Folge der Ursachen oder aber als Zwischenglied in einer rein formalen (nicht kausalen) Reihe von Gestalten betrachtet werden. Es geht jeweils um eine andere Betrachtungsweise; evolutionstheoretische Binde- und morphologische Zwischenglieder schließen jeweils verschiedenartige ‚Erklärungslücken‘. Um diese formalen Zusammenhänge geht es auch, wenn wir uns über unseren „Begriff der Sprache“ klar werden wollen. „Wir können nur beschreiben, da uns causale Zusammenhänge, d. i. die tatsächliche Folge der Vorgänge, nicht interessiert (da wir hierin bereit sind, alles zu glauben). Und die Zusammenhänge, die dann bleiben, sind formelle, die sich nicht beschreiben lassen, sondern sich in der Grammatik ausdrücken.“ (MS 110: 284; vgl. MS 153a: 43r-43v; TS 211: 301) Wittgenstein unterscheidet hier weiterhin Sagen und Zeigen: Formale Zusammenhänge, interne Relationen, lassen sich nicht direkt zur Sprache bringen, über sie kann man nicht reden, und in diesem Sinn kann man sie nicht beschreiben (vgl. MS 110: 185). Aber sie zeigen sich in einer Beschreibung – in einer übersichtlichen Darstellung – gleichsam von selbst; wir können für sie also nur „unser Auge […] schärfen“ (MS 110: 257). Diese formalen Zusammenhänge sind die eigentlich interessanten, ja entscheidenden, nicht die kausalen, entwicklungsgeschichtlichen: So argumentiert Wittgenstein gegen die Kausaltheorie der Bedeutung, aber auch gegen Frazers evolutionäre Ethnologie. Wenn man diese Betrachtung lediglich als Einwand gegen den Golden Bough liest, steht Wittgenstein mit seiner Kritik nicht allein. Schon früh hatte Marett, Tylors Nachfolger in Oxford, Frazers entwicklungsgeschichtliches Schema kritisiert. „[A] purely analytic method“, bemerkte er zur zweiten Ausgabe des Golden Bough, „has escaped its own notice in putting on a pseudo-genetic guise“; zwei „mere heads of classification“ (‚Magie‘ und ‚Religion‘) wurden zu wesensverschiedenen Erscheinungen hypostasiert und dann „identified with the phases of a historical development which is thereby robbed of all intrinsic continuity“

21 Zum Unterschied zwischen Wittgensteins formalen „connecting links“ und den genetischen „missing links“ der Evolutionstheorie vgl. Hacker 1992: 294. Zum Zwischenkieferknochen bei Goethe vgl. Griesecke 2001: 130. Zu den Zwischengliedern vgl. auch Bourdieu 1980: 21. 22 „Das Richtige und Interessante ist nicht zu sagen das ist aus dem hervorgegangen, sondern: es könnte so hervorgegangen sein.“ (MS 143: 23)

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(Marett 1914b: 35);23 denn Frazer postuliert einen historischen Bruch zwischen Magie und Religion. Auch Frazers Unterscheidung zweier Arten von Magie dient Marett zufolge eher der „analysis“ als der „genesis“ (Marett 1914b: 39). Wittgensteins Argument geht in die gleiche Richtung: Frazers Darstellung ist die entstehungsgeschichtliche Verkleidung einer rein formalen Betrachtung. Sie kann wiederum in eine formale Betrachtung überführt werden, die für sich keine historische Wahrheit beansprucht.

4 D  er Chor und das Kompositbild. Eine „Idee“ ausdrücken und darstellen? 1931 (in MS 110) pflichtet Wittgenstein zwar Schiller bei, dass die „Idee“ keine Erfahrung ist, geht aber zugleich davon aus, dass man diese „Idee“ doch ausdrücken, darstellen „ k a n n“ , und zwar am besten einfach nur dadurch, dass man das ‚Tatsachenmaterial‘ zusammenstellt und ordnet. Wie steht es nun mit dieser Möglichkeit, die „Idee“ auszudrücken und darzustellen? Und wozu Frazers Darstellung durch eine rein formale ersetzen? Sind die im Golden Bough geschaffenen Verbindungen, kausal verstanden, wertlos, als formale jedoch aufschlussreich? Und welche Zusammenhänge zwischen Riten ließen sich wirklich als rein formale betrachten? Als interne Relationen wie in der Grammatik oder in der Mathematik?24 Und selbst dann: Wären diese ‚formalen‘ Zusammenhänge zwischen Riten wirklich so ‚interessant‘? Es kommt auf das ‚Gesetz‘ an, auf das sie zu deuten scheinen. Wittgenstein legt darauf Wert, dass man dieses Gesetz nicht in empirischem, kausalem, entwicklungsgeschichtlichem Sinn missverstehen darf, als ob die bekannten Riten einem urzeitlichen Menschenopfer (und den diesem zugrundeliegenden Anschauungen) entstammten – wie einer entwicklungsgeschichtlich missverstandenen Urpflanze. Geht es für Wittgenstein 1931 stattdessen um ein „Prinzip nach welchem diese Gebräuche geordnet sind“ (MS 110:

23 Vgl. zu dieser Stelle Stocking 1995: 166; Brusotti 2014: 242. 24 Hier fällt einem die strukturalistische Methode ein, mit der man Wittgensteins Frazer-Bemerkungen auch verglichen hat (vgl. Douglas 1978: 159; Tambiah 1990: 59). Die tiefen Unterschiede darf man jedoch nicht übersehen. Da Wittgenstein das performative Moment betont, das der Strukturalismus vernachlässigt, beruft man sich auf ihn, wenn man den intellektualistischen Charakter des Strukturalismus kritisiert (vgl. etwa Bourdieu 1980, insbes. S. 37ff.). Eine Kritik von Wittgensteins Vorstellung formaler Beziehungen formuliert wiederum Carlo Ginzburg (1989), der gegen Wittgensteins Frazer-Kritik ‚hybride‘ d.h. zugleich morphologische und historische Ansätze verteidigen möchte.



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195; TS 211: 317), d.h., um einen formalen Zusammenhang der Tatsachen, den wir darstellen können? Welchen Status hat dann das rätselhafte Gesetz, auf das der Chor deutet? In folgender späterer Bemerkung, die sich nicht direkt auf den Golden Bough bezieht, ist nicht ausgemacht, dass man so ein Gesetz darstellen kann. Wittgenstein meint eben mit Goethes Gedicht, dass der Chor auf das Gesetz nur deutet, und trägt nun auf neue Weise Schillers Einwand Rechnung, Goethes Urpflanze sei keine Erfahrung, sondern eine Idee: Das Gesetz nehmen wir nicht wahr, wir ‚ahnen‘ es nur, der ‚Chor‘ wirkt auf uns so. „Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz“ Daß es d e u t e t ist eben das Sprechende// das, was auf uns wirkt// Es ist nicht ein Gesetz welches wir wahrnehmen, sondern etwas, was man die Ahnung eines Gesetzes nennen könnte. Das undeutliche Bild eines Menschen z u s e h e n hat eine bestimmte Wirkung ob es nun von einem wirklichen Menschen ausgeht oder nicht. (MS 156a: 99)25

Galtons composite portraiture ist ein undeutliches Bild, das von einem ganzen „Chor“ ausgeht: Es bildet keinen wirklichen, bestimmten Einzelnen ab, zeigt aber die Ähnlichkeit zwischen den vielen Porträtierten, und lässt in diesem Sinn gleichsam ein Gesetz durchscheinen.26 Die „Ahnung des Gesetzes“ und das undeutliche Bild eines Menschen sind darin verwandt, dass man nicht weiß, was ihnen eigentlich entspricht. „[T]he photographic process“, so beschreibt Galton seine Technik, […] enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure, possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time, would doubt its being the likeness of a living person. Yet […] it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type, and not of an individual.27

Sichtbar wird also „a common similarity to a central ideal type“: Deshalb nennt Galton später seine Kompositbilder auch ‚generic Images‘, ‚generic portraits‘ or ‚blended portraits‘. „All that is common to the group remains, all that is individual disappears.“ (Galton 1879b: 161) Die Ähnlichkeit zwischen den Einzel-

25 Zu dieser „Initialbemerkung“ vgl. Rothhaupt 1996: 187 u. 173. 26 So Rothhaupt 1996: 185ff., 203f. Zu Galton vgl. auch Hilmy 1987: 200. Auch in Wittgensteins späten Reflexionen steht das Gleichnis der „Mannigfaltigkeit von Gesichtern mit gemeinsamen Zügen die da und dort immer wieder auftauchen“ (MS 143: 8), für die von Frazer beschriebenen Riten mit ihren Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschieden. 27 Galton 1878: 97. Vgl. auch Galton 1879a: 132f.; diese letztere Stelle teilweise zit. bei Needham 1972: 111.

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porträts, aus denen sich das Kompositbild zusammensetzt, ist, wie Galton sie versteht, keine ‚Familienähnlichkeit‘ in Wittgensteins Sinn; denn Wittgensteins Begriff stellt gerade in Frage, dass die charakteristischen Gesichtszüge allen Familienmitgliedern gemeinsam sein müssen. Und Wittgenstein verwendet das Gleichnis des Kompositbilds schon lange, bevor er zu seinem Begriff der ‚Familienähnlichkeit‘ gelangt. 1929, im Vortrag über Ethik, soll das Galtonsche composite portraiture die allen Porträtierten gemeinsamen Züge hervorheben28 – und dasselbe dürfte auch für Nährs Familienbild der Geschwister Wittgenstein gelten.29 Auch die angeführte Aufzeichnung von 1931 betont noch nicht, dass die ‚Chormitglieder‘ heterogen sind. Erst später steht das Kompositbild – wie auch Goethes Morphologie – für den Begriff der ‚Familienähnlichkeit‘, über den Wittgenstein zur Zeit seiner ersten Auseinandersetzung mit dem Golden Bough noch nicht verfügt.30 Vor einem undeutlichen Bild kann sich die Frage stellen, ob es „von einem wirklichen Menschen ausgeht“ oder von einem ‚Typus‘ (wie Galtons Kompositporträt) bzw. von einem ‚Chor‘ (so Wittgenstein mit Goethe). Diese Frage betrifft aber nur die ‚Geschichte‘ des Bildes und berührt dessen aktuelle ‚Wirkung‘, den Eindruck, den es auf den Betrachter macht, nicht. Insofern ist für Wittgenstein

28 Im Vortrag verwendet Wittgenstein, der sich an Galtons Auffassung des Kompositporträts anlehnt, das Gleichnis der allen Mitgliedern einer Volksgruppe gemeinsamen Gesichtszüge. Wie Galton selbst ist auch Wittgenstein hier (vgl. LE: 38) noch weit entfernt von der Einsicht, dass die charakteristischen, prägenden Gesichtszüge nicht allen Mitgliedern einer Familie gemeinsam sein müssen. Selbst im Blue Book, in dem der Familienähnlichkeitsbegriff bereits zentral ist („games for|m| a f a m i l y the members of which have family likenesses“ D 309: 27; BBB: 17), steht das „Galtonian composite photograph“ (BBB: 18) noch nicht für „Familienähnlichkeit“ in Wittgensteins Sinn, sondern geradezu für deren Gegenbegriff: Es ist ein Sinnbild der von Wittgenstein kritisierten Auffassung, die „general idea of a leaf“ (Goethe) sei „something like a visual image, but one which only contains what is common to all leaves. (Galtonian composite photograph.)“ (BBB: 18). 29 Etwa 1928 fertigte der Fotograf Moritz Nähr ein composite portraiture von Wittgenstein und seinen drei Schwestern Hermine, Helene und Margarethe an. Aus diesem Grund meint Nedo, der dieses Kompositfoto zum ersten Mal als solches erkannte, Wittgenstein habe den zentralen Begriff der Familienähnlichkeit spätestens in dieser Zeit (von 1926 bis 1928) entwickelt, auf jeden Fall noch vor seiner Rückkehr nach Cambridge im Jahr 1929. Als Beleg führt Nedo lediglich die Reihe fotografischer Experimente an, die zum Kompositbild der Geschwister Wittgenstein führten. (Vgl. Nedo 2007, insbes. S. 169; vgl. auch Nedo 2012: 268f.) Es trifft zu, dass das FamilienKompositbild das Gleichnis bereitstellt und dass bereits Galton von „family likeness“ redet. (Zu diesem letzteren Punkt vgl. Rothhaupt 1996: 203f., Anm. 1.) Aber Wittgenstein entwickelt den Familienähnlichkeitsbegriff erst Jahre nach der Herstellung des Kompositbildes durch Nähr. 30 In Rush Rhees’ Notizen aus Wittgensteins Vorlesung von 1936 z.B. hat das Gleichnis des Kompositbildes die neue Bedeutung. Vgl. LSDPE: 305.



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gleichgültig, ob es jenes geheime, weil nur geahnte Gesetz wirklich gibt, worauf der Chor der bei Frazer beschriebenen Riten zu deuten scheint: Der Chor wirke auf uns so, als ob es eines gäbe. Auf diese Wirkung komme es an, sei sie auch rein subjektiv. Galton will einen ‚Typus‘ abbilden, ein ‚ideales‘ Gesicht. Frazer stellt einen ‚Chor‘ zusammen und weist so auf ein Gesetz, dessen Status er jedoch missversteht. Denn auf welches Gesetz deutet seine „Tatsachensammlung“ hin? Versteht man jene Riten wirklich, indem man sie ‚übersichtlich darstellt‘? Die angeführten Bemerkungen erwähnen den „Teil der Betrachtung“ nicht, der die übersichtliche Darstellung – wie Wittgenstein Jahre später schreibt – „mit unsern eigenen Gefühlen und Gedanken in Verbindung bringt“ und so „der Betrachtung ihre Tiefe“ (MS 143: 8) gibt. Dieser ‚Teil‘ der Betrachtung ist indes auch 1931 vorgesehen: „[D]ie gewünschte/ersehnte/ Erklärung; d.h. die welche das besondere puzzlement/diese besondere Schwierigkeit/ löst“ (MS 110: 298),31 besteht darin, dass ich das „Phänomen“ d.h. hier eine „Instinkt-Handlung“, mit einem „Instinkt den ich selber besitze in Verbindung“ bringe. Kulturelle Unterschiede blendet Wittgenstein hier auch deshalb aus, weil er auf höchst fragwürdige Weise rituelle Handlungen mit „Instinkt-Handlungen“ gleichsetzt.32 Wie verhält sich nun der „Instinkt“, aus dem die Handlung begangen wurde, zu dem „Instinkt“, mit dem der Beobachter sie „verbindet“? Und in welchem Sinn ist diese „Verbindung“ die erwünschte „Erklärung“? In dem rein subjektiven Sinn, dass Frazers Leser dann beruhigt ist und sich keine Fragen mehr stellt? Oder erlangt er zusammen mit der Ruhe auch die Fähigkeit, sich in den fremden Ritus hineinzuversetzen? Geht Wittgenstein davon aus, dass der Beobachter die „Instinkt-Handlung“ versteht, weil er den „Instinkt“ des Akteurs teilt? So direkt und explizit äußert sich der Philosoph nicht. Aber eine Grenze zwischen subjektiver Beruhigung und kognitiver Leistung zieht er 1931 nicht. Die Verständigung scheint auf einer prä- und/oder überkulturellen Ebene stattzufinden, d.h., sich einem (gemeinsamen) „Instinkt“ und/oder einem allgemeinen „Prinzip“ zu verdanken, das „in unserer eigenen Seele vorhanden“ (MS 110: 195) ist. 1931 geht Wittgenstein davon aus, dass man die Schiller’sche „Idee“ ausdrücken, darstellen „ k a n n“ . Was ist nun diese „Idee“? Wittgenstein scheint sich zu

31 Wie die gewellte Unterstreichung zeigt, findet Wittgenstein offenbar keine befriedigende deutsche Übersetzung für „puzzlement“. 32 Zwar kritisiert Wittgenstein Frazers Unfähigkeit, „ein anderes Leben zu begreifen als das englische seiner Zeit“ (MS 110: 184; TS 211: 317); aber die Schwierigkeiten interkultureller Verständigung, auf die Spengler Wittgensteins Aufmerksamkeit gelenkt hatte, spielen in dieser ersten Auseinandersetzung mit dem Golden Bough nur eine begrenzte Rolle. Vgl. dazu Brusotti 2014: 10f., 120f. und passim.

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fragen: Ist das Gesetz, das Frazer als ein kausales, entwicklungsgeschichtliches versteht, nicht doch ein „in unserer eigenen Seele vorhanden“ „viel allgemeineres“ (formales) „Prinzip nach welchem diese Gebräuche geordnet sind“ (MS 110: 195; TS 211: 317)? Meint er damit, dass sie wirklich auf eine bestimmte Weise „geordnet“ sind? Oder geht es hier nur um eine subjektive Erfahrung – sei es eine gemeinsame, sei es eine idiosynkratische? Ist das ‚geheime Gesetz‘ also doch nur ein ‚Aspekt‘, dem nicht unbedingt etwas entspricht? Ja, vielleicht sogar eine Fata Morgana?

5 „ That they point, is all there is to it.“ Die Vorlesung vom May Term 1933 Eine späte Aufzeichnung, die ohne Bezug auf den Golden Bough Goethes Verse noch einmal anführt, legt nahe, dass nicht das Gesetz allein, sondern auch das Geheimnis, das es umgibt, nur Schein ist: Wie bei einem Traum sieht das Ganze zwar wie ein Rätsel aus, ist aber nicht unbedingt eines. (Vgl. MS 137: 97a; Brusotti 2014: 327ff.) Wittgenstein, der 1931 ein „Prinzip“ anzunehmen scheint, „nach welchem diese Gebräuche geordnet sind“ (MS 110: 195; TS 211: 317), geht dann rasch zur anderen Option über: zum Gesetz als Fata Morgana. Er wählt diese Alternative nicht nur in der zitierten Galton-Bemerkung, sondern offenbar – und diesmal mit Bezug auf Frazer – auch in seiner Vorlesung vom May Term 1933.33 Die Mitschrift in Moores Notizheften 10/7/8 und 10/7/9, die im Folgenden ausgewertet wird, erweitert unsere Kenntnis dieser Vorlesung

33 Moores Bericht Wittgensteinˈs Lectures erschien in Mind 1954–1955, also mehr als zwanzig Jahre nach Wittgensteins Vorlesung vom May Term 1933. Der über 80 Jahre alte Moore griff dabei auf Mitschriften zurück, die er als Hörer der Vorlesungen in sechs Notizheften aufgezeichnet hatte. Diese viel eingehenderen und Wittgenstein treueren Lecture notes sind in Moores Nachlass in der Cambridge University Library aufbewahrt (Sammlung: Add. MS 8875, Sektion 10/7/4-9). Vgl. Cann 1995; vgl. dazu Rothhaupt 1995. Die angekündigte Ausgabe sämtlicher Mitschriften Moores (Hrsg.: D. Stern/B. Rogers/G. Citron) ist deshalb ein dringendes Desiderat der Wittgenstein-Forschung. Moores Mitschriften der Vorlesung vom May Term 1933 habe ich im Sommer 2013 während eines Aufenthalts im Manuscripts Reading Room der Cambridge University Library eingesehen, digitalisiert und entziffert. Im Frühling 2014 wurde den Autoren des vorliegenden Sammelbandes die unveröffentlichte Entzifferung der zwei Vorlesungen vom 5. und vom 9. Mai 1933 (= 10/7/9: 1–12) freundlicherweise zur Verfügung gestellt. In diesem Beitrag konzentriere ich mich allerdings auf die Vorlesungen vom 15. und v. a. vom 22. Mai 1933. Für eventuelle Fehlentzifferungen, die ich keineswegs ausschließen kann, trage ich die alleinige Verantwortung. – Zu Moores Mitschriften von Wittgensteins Vorlesungen vgl. Stern 2013; Stern/Citron/Rogers 2013.



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erheblich. Diese Auseinandersetzung mit dem Golden Bough ist auch deshalb interessant, weil Wittgenstein 1933 Begriffe und Gedanken einsetzt, mit denen er im Juni-Juli 1931 noch nicht arbeitete. Darauf bin ich in meiner Monographie ausführlich eingegangen.34 Hier beschränke ich mich auf die Vorlesung vom 15. und vor allem auf die vom 22. Mai, in der Wittgenstein wie 1931 Goethes Vers auf den Golden Bough anwendet. Der Leser dieses Buches darf hiernach nicht nach dem Gesetz hinter den von Frazer beschriebenen Riten suchen, in diesem Fall hinter den fire-festivals of Europe. Wittgenstein, der offenbar einen lebhaften Eindruck von Frazers Beschreibungen vermitteln wollte, las – wohl anhand der Abridged Edition von 1922 – am 9. Mai ausführlich aus dem „Chap. on Fire Festivals in Europe“ (10/7/9: 7)35 und am 15. Mai aus „Frazer, Chap. I, King of the Wood“ (10/7/9: 24) vor. Moore fasst die Erzählung vom Waldkönig am Anfang des Golden Bough stichwortartig zusammen (vgl. 10/7/9: 25).36 Wittgensteins kritischen Kommentar vermag er dagegen nicht wirklich festzuhalten. Nach folgenden Sätzen bricht die Mitschrift ab. Now you are puzzled by this story. And you are puzzled less, if you hear similar stories. ? But story can’t be made to seem n a t u r a l , by giving c a u s e s how it arose. That it seems beautiful It can only (10/7/9: 25)

Die übernächste Vorlesung (22. Mai 1933) geht erneut auf unser „puzzlement“ ein – diesmal mit Bezug auf das Beltanefest. Goethes Gedicht über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen bleibt eine wichtige Referenz: What satisfies my puzzlement about Beltane, is not kind of causal explanation wh. Frazer gives – which is a hypothesis; but simply describing lots of things more or less like Beltane. Goethe in Metamorphose der Pflanzen, suggests that all plants are variations on a theme. What is the theme? G. says „They all point to a hidden law“. But you needn’t ask: What is the law? T h a t they point, is all there is to it.  ? Darwin made a hypothesis to account for this. But you might treat it quite differently. You might say what is satisfactory in Darwin is not the hypothesis, but the putting the facts in a system – helping us to overlook them. (10/7/9: 33; das Fragezeichen in Fettdruck ist ein Kommentar von Moore.)

34 Vgl. Brusotti 2014: 271ff. 35 Vgl. Brusotti 2014: 292f. 36 Wie Moores Mitschrift zu entnehmen, trug Wittgenstein die ersten zwei Seiten der Abridged Edition vor: „Who does not know Turner’s picture of the Golden Bough? […] then we may fairly infer that at a remoter age the same motives gave birth to the priesthood of Nemi.“ (Frazer 1922: 1f.)

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Den ‚Chor‘ bilden hier (anders als 1931) die europäischen Feuerfeste. Der skizzenhaften Mitschrift lässt sich mit einer gewissen Wahrscheinlichkeit entnehmen, dass Wittgenstein den Zusammenhang zwischen diesem ‚Chor‘ und dem ‚Gesetz‘ ähnlich sieht wie in der zitierten Galton-Bemerkung. Beim Galtonschen Kompositbild darf man nicht annehmen, dass es einen echten Einzelmenschen darstellt. Beim ‚Chor‘ der von Frazer beschriebenen Gebräuche verhält es sich ähnlich. Auch Frazers ‚Kompositbild‘, seinen ‚Chor‘, darf man nicht in dem Sinne verstehen, dass hinter den beschriebenen Gebräuchen etwas wie ein verborgenes ‚Gesetz‘ stecke. So die Vorlesung: Nach dem geheimnisvollen ‚Gesetz‘, nach dem Thema, das alle Pflanzen variieren, dürfe man nicht fragen. Man dürfe nicht fragen „What is the law?“. „T h a t they point, is all there is to it.“ (10/7/9: 33)37 Es gibt nur den ‚Chor‘; das ‚Gesetz‘ ist lediglich Frazers Form der Darstellung bzw. der ‚Aspekt‘, unter dem sich der ‚Chor‘ im Golden Bough zeigt; und bereits die Frage dürfte hier wie Goethes ‚heiliges Rätsel‘ nur Schein sein, und dies selbst dann, wenn sie nicht kausal gemeint ist: „Es ist als wenn hier ein Rätsel wäre; aber es muß doch kein Rätsel sein.“ (MS 137: 97a)38 So gedeutet, steht Goethes Morphologie auch in der Vorlesung für die von Wittgenstein befürwortete „‚descriptive method‘ = method wh. tells you various things in r i g h t order = order which impresses you, without pretending to thread them on historical thread.“ (10/7/9: 9) Frazer erhebt zwar einen historischen Anspruch; aber der Golden Bough – so darf man diese Stelle lesen – stellt uns auch dann zufrieden, wenn er diesen Anspruch nicht erfüllt: Frazer löst unsere ‚Schwierigkeit‘ mit den Feuerfesten tatsächlich auf, wenn auch nicht durch eine historische Hypothese, sondern „simply describing lots of things more or less like Beltane“ bzw., wie es von Darwin heißt, „putting the facts in a system – helping us to overlook them“ (10/7/9: 33). Um diese Leistung geht es auch am 26. Mai 1933. In der letzten Vorlesung, die auf Frazer eingeht, bezieht sich Wittgenstein nicht nur auf die Erzählung vom Priesterkönig, die prominenteste unter den „interesting stories“, die Frazer durch seine kausale Hypothese verbindet, und nicht nur auf die Beschreibungen der Feuerfeste, sondern auf den Golden Bough im Ganzen. „So Frazer tells us lots of interesting stories, and joins them up by threading them on a hypothesis; but

37 Wie angegeben, setzt Moore hier ein Fragezeichen; und in Mind wird er die Analogie zu Goethes ‚Metamorphose der Pflanzen‘ nicht erwähnen. 38 In dieser handschriftlichen Bemerkung, in der Goethes Verse zitiert werden, geht es nicht um Frazer, sondern um Traumdeutung. In Untersuchungen zur ‚sekundären Bedeutung‘ geht der letzte Wittgenstein öfter auf Sätze ein, die verwandte subjektive Eindrücke versprachlichen („Mir ist, als wüßte ich, daß die Stadt dort liegt“).



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what satisfies is not the hypothesis“ (10/7/9: 38f.), „not the hypothesis as a hypothesis“ (10/7/10: 44), sondern eben als Synopse, als Leitfaden, der die ‚Geschichten‘ formal, z.B. erzählerisch, miteinander verbindet.

6 S  chlussbetrachtung Im Allgemeinen muss man die spezifische Natur der frühen Bemerkungen berücksichtigen; denn im Juni/Juli 1931 ist für Wittgenstein eine ‚ethnologische Betrachtungsweise‘ noch in weiter Ferne. Baker hat Recht, dass die ‚übersichtliche Darstellung‘ mit einer empirischen Beschreibung nicht zu verwechseln ist, auch 1931 nicht. Aber Gegenstand einer ‚übersichtlichen Darstellung‘ sind 1931 doch religiöse Bräuche. Diese Auffassung beinhaltet zwar eine Kritik von Frazers kausalen Erklärungen, lehnt sich jedoch zugleich an den Golden Bough an. Wie gezeigt, „kann“ man Wittgenstein zufolge (1) Frazers Tatsachensammlung als Ganzes und (2) die Wandlungen der Bedeutung (u.a. in Gebräuchen wie denen mit dem ‚Kornwolf‘) übersichtlich darstellen. Ein Zusammenhang zwischen (1) und (2) besteht, insofern Rituale sprachliche Vorgänge sind, die ähnliche Wandlungen der Bedeutung aufweisen wie unsere Wortsprache überhaupt. Dass beim Diktieren vom MS 110 ins TS 211 die einschlägigen Bemerkungen verschoben und in einen neuen Kontext eingefügt werden, zeigt, dass Wittgenstein bereits in dieser Maschinenschrift nur die übersichtliche Darstellung sprachlicher Vorgänge als eigenes Vorhaben vorschwebt: Das Zusammenstellen von Wandlungen der Bedeutung ist eine grammatische Untersuchung, die uns über unsere eigene Sprache aufklären und begriffliche Probleme auflösen kann. Die übersichtliche Darstellung von Frazers Tatsachensammlung kann dagegen zwar den verstörten Leser des Golden Bough vielleicht beruhigen, löst aber im Grunde weder empirische noch begriffliche Probleme. Und dass man Frazers Tatsachensammlung übersichtlich darstellen „kann“, heißt von Anfang an nicht, dass Wittgenstein es selbst vorhat oder darin die Aufgabe einer möglichen Ethnologie sieht, sondern nur, dass man den Golden Bough so auffassen kann – und die Entwicklungshypothese als Einkleidung eines formalen Zusammenhangs. Worum handelt es sich aber bei diesem formalen Zusammenhang? 1931 scheint Wittgenstein ein „allgemeineres […] und in unserer eigenen Seele vorhanden“ „Prinzip“ anzunehmen, „nach welchem diese Gebräuche geordnet sind“ (MS 110: 195; TS 211: 317). Spätestens im May Term 1933 allerdings sieht er in diesem ‚Gesetz‘ nur noch einen Schein und in der übersichtlichen Darstellung der Frazerschen fire-festivals eine

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ästhetische Untersuchung, die nur insofern einer grammatischen ähnelt, als grammatische und ästhetische Untersuchungen miteinander verwandt sind.39

Literatur Abel, Günter/Kroß, Matthias/Nedo, Michael (2007) Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ingenieur – Philosoph – Künstler, Berlin. Ackerman, Robert A. (1987) J. G. Frazer. His Life and Work, Cambridge. Andronico, Marilena (1998) Antropologia e metodo morfologico. Studio su Wittgenstein, Neapel. Baker, Gordon P. (2004) „Philosophical Investigations § 122: Neglected Aspects“, in: Gordon P. Baker: Wittgenstein’s Method. Neglected Aspects: Essays on Wittgenstein. Malden/Oxford. Baker, Gordon P./Hacker, Peter Michael Stephan (1980) „Übersicht“, in: Gordon P. Baker und Peter Michael Stephan Hacker: An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Bd. 1: Wittgenstein. Understanding and Meaning, Oxford, 533–545. Boas, Franz (1896) „The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology“, in: Science, New Series 4/103, 901–908. Bourdieu, Pierre (1980) Le Sens pratique, Paris. Bouveresse, Jacques (2000) Essais I. Wittgenstein, la modernité, le progrès et le déclin. Textes rassemblés et organisés par J.-J. Rosat, Marseille. Breithaupt, Fritz/Raatzsch, Richard/Kremberg, Bettina (Hrsg.) (2003) Goethe and Wittgenstein. Seeing the World’s Unity in its Variety, Frankfurt a. M. Brusotti, Marco (2000) „Der Okzident und das Fremde. Wittgenstein über Frazer, Spengler, Renan“, in: Ute Dietrich und Martina Winkler (Hrsg.): Okzidentbilder: Konstruktionen und Wahrnehmungen, Leipzig, 31–61. Brusotti, Marco (2007a) „‚Blicke weiter um dich!‘ ‚Ethnologische Betrachtungsweise‘ und Kritik der Ethnologie bei Wittgenstein“, in: Abel/Kroß/Nedo, 193–208. Brusotti, Marco (2007b) „Überflüssige Annahmen. Wittgensteins Auseinandersetzung mit James Frazers evolutionärer Anthropologie“, in: Christoph Asmuth und Hans Poser (Hrsg.): Evolution. Modell – Methode – Paradigma, Würzburg, 79–106. Brusotti, Marco (2011) „‚Ethnologie unseres Zeitalters‘. Otto Neurath über Magie und Technik im Vergleich mit Wittgensteins ‚Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough‘“, in: Hans Gerald Hödl und Veronica Futterknecht (Hrsg.): Religionen nach der Säkularisierung. Festschrift für Johann Figl zum 65. Geburtstag, Wien, 331–354. Brusotti, Marco (2013) „‚Es ist schwer sich an kein Gleichnis zu verlieren.‘ Zu einem sprach- und kulturphilosophischen Thema Wittgensteins“, in: Josef Rothhaupt und Wilhelm Vossenkuhl (Hrsg.): Kulturen und Werte. Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch als Initialtext, Berlin/Boston, 225–242. Brusotti, Marco (2014) Wittgenstein, Frazer und die „ethnologische Betrachtungsweise“, Berlin/ Boston.

39 So in der Vorlesung vom May Term 1933 und im Grunde auch in TS 143. Zu einer Deutung dieser losen Blätter vgl. Brusotti 2014: 302ff.



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Cann, Kathleen (1995) „The papers of George Edward Moore (1873 – 1958), Cambridge University Library, Add. MSS 8330 and 8875“, in: Wittgenstein Studies, Diskette 1/1995, File: 18-1-95. Cioffi, Frank (1998) Wittgenstein on Freud and Frazer, Cambridge. Clack, Brian R. (1999) Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion, London/New York. Dewey, John (1998 [1902]) „Interpretation of Savage Mind“, in: The Essential Dewey, 2 Bde. hrsg. v. Larry A. Hickman und Thomas M. Alexander, Bloomington/Indianapolis, Bd. 2: 11–18. [Erstausgabe: Psychological Review 9 (1902), 217–230.] Douglas, Mary (1978) „Judgments on James Frazer“, in: Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [= Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 107, No. 4], 151–164. Downie, R. Angus (1970) Frazer and The Golden Bough, London. Drury, Maurice O’Connor (1973) The Danger of Words, London. [Auch in: Drury, Maurice O’Connor: The Danger of Words and Writings on Wittgenstein. With a Preface by D. Berman and M. Fitzgerald, Bristol 2003.] Drury, Maurice O’Connor (1984b) „Conversations with Wittgenstein“, in: Rush Rhees (Hrsg.): Recollections of Wittgenstein, Oxford, 112–189. [Auch in: Drury, Maurice O’Connor: The Danger of Words and Writings on Wittgenstein. With a Preface by D. Berman and M. Fitzgerald, Bristol 2003.] Durt, Christoph (2007) „Wittgenstein’s Ethnological Approach to Philosophy“, in: Christian Kanzian und Edmund Runggaldier (Hrsg.) Cultures: Conflict-Analysis-Dialogue: Proceedings of the 29th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Heusenstamm, 43–58. Engelmann, Mauro Luiz (2013) Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Development. Phenomenology, Grammar, Method, and the Anthropological View, Basingstoke. Fraser, Robert (1990) The Making of the Golden Bough. The Origins and Growth of an Argument, New York. Frazer, James George (1911–1915) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, 3. Auflage, 12 Bde., London. Frazer, James George (1922) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Abridged Edition, London. Galton, Francis (1878) „Composite Portraits“, in: Nature 18, 97–100. Galton, Francis (1879a) „Composite Portraits, made by combining those of many different persons into a single resultant figure“, in: Journal of the Anthropological Institute 8, 132–144. Galton, Francis (1879b) Generic Images. With Autotype Illustrations. Reprinted from the „Proceedings of the Royal Institution“ 1879, London. Gebauer, Gunter (2009) Wittgensteins anthropologisches Denken, München. Ginzburg, Carlo (1989) Storia notturna. Una decifrazione del sabba, Turin. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1887–1919) Goethes Werke. Hrsg. im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen [= Sophien- oder Weimarer Ausgabe], Abt. I–IV, 133 Bände in 143 Teilen, Weimar. Griesecke, Birgit (2001) „Zwischenglieder (er-)finden. Wittgenstein mit Geertz und Goethe“, in: Wilhelm Lütterfelds und Djavid Salehi (Hrsg.) „Wir können uns nicht in sie finden.“ Probleme interkultureller Verständigung und Kooperation, Frankfurt a. M., 123–146. Hacker, Peter Michael Stephan (1992) „Developmental hypotheses and perspicuous representations: Wittgenstein on Frazer’s ‚Golden Bough‘“, in: Iyyun. The Jerusalem Philosophical

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Quarterly 41, 277–299 [mit einem Postscript auch in Peter Michael Stephan Hacker (2001) Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies. Oxford, 74–97]. Hacker, Peter Michael Stephan (2013) „Wittgenstein’s Anthropological and Ethnological Approach“, in: Peter Michael Stephan Hacker: Wittgenstein: Comparisons and Context, Oxford, 111–127. Hallett, Garth L. (1977) A Companion to Wittgenstein’s „Philosophical Investigations“, Ithaca. Hilmy, S. Stephen (1987) The Later Wittgenstein. The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method, Oxford. Hübscher, Paul (1985) Der Einfluss von Johann Wolfgang Goethe und Paul Ernst auf Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bern/Frankfurt a. M. Koritensky, Andreas (2002) Wittgensteins Phänomenologie der Religion. Zur Rehabilitierung religiöser Ausdrucksformen im Zeitalter der wissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart. Lara, Philippe de (2003) „Wittgenstein as Anthropologist. The Concept of Ritual Instinct“, in: Philosophical Investigations 26, 109–124. Lara, Philippe de (2005) Le rite et la raison. Wittgenstein anthropologue, Paris. Leach, Edmund Ronald (1961) „Golden Bough or Gilded Twig?“, in: Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 90, 371–387. Majetschak, Stefan (2012) „Die anthropologische Betrachtungsweise. Zum Einfluss von James George Frazers The Golden Bough auf die Entwicklung der Spätphilosophie Ludwig Wittgensteins“, in: Wittgenstein-Studien 3, 217–232. Marett, Robert Ranulf (1920) Psychology and Folklore, London. Margalit, Avishai (1992) „Sense and Sensibility: Wittgenstein on The Golden Bough”, in: Iyyun. The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 41, 301–318. Monk, Ray (1990) Wittgenstein: the Duty of Genius, New York. Moore, George E. (1930–1933) Lecture notes. Cambridge University Library. Sammlung: Add. MS 8875, Sektion 10/7/4–9. Unveröffentlicht. [Eine Ausgabe ist in Vorbereitung: Stern, David/Rogers, Brian/Citron, Gabriel (Hrsg.): Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E. Moore.] Moore, George E. (1954–1955) „Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930–1933“, in: Mind 63 (1954), 1–15 (Part I); Mind 63 (1954), 289–316 (Part II); Mind 64 (1955), 1–27 (Part III); Mind 64 (1955), 264 („Two Corrections“). [Auch in: PO: 45–114.] Nedo, Michael (2007) „Familienähnlichkeit: Philosophie und Praxis. Eine Collage“, in: Abel/ Kroß/Nedo, 163–178. Needham, Rodney (1972) Belief, Language, and Experience, Oxford. Needham, Rodney (1985) „Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ritual“, in: Rodney Needham: Exemplars, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 149–177. Nordmann, Alfred (2003) „Goethe, Lichtenberg, and Wittgenstein“, in: Breithaupt/Raatzsch/ Kremberg, 91–110. Rhees, Rush (1976) „Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual“, in: Jaakko Hintikka (Hrsg.): Essays on Wittgenstein in Honour of G. H. von Wright (= Acta Philosophica Fennica, Bd. 28, Nr. 1–3), Amsterdam, 450–484. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (1995) „Zur Veröffentlichung des Nachlaß-Katalogs ‚The papers of George Edward Moore (1873–1958)‘“, in: Wittgenstein Studies, Diskette 1/1995, File: 17-1-95. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (1996) Farbthemen in Wittgensteins Gesamtnachlaß. Philologischphilosophische Untersuchungen im Längsschnitt und in Querschnitten, Weinheim.



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Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (2011) „Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch als unverzichtbarer Initialtext seines ‚anthropologischen Denkens‘ und seiner ‚ethnologischen Betrachtungsweise‘“, in: Wittgenstein Studien 2, 137–186. Rothhaupt, Josef G. F./Vossenkuhl, Wilhelm (Hrsg.) (2013) Kulturen und Werte. Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch als Initialtext, Berlin/Boston. Rowe, Mark W. (1991) „Goethe and Wittgenstein“, in: Philosophy 66, 283–303. Rudich, Norman/Stassen, Manfred (1971) „Wittgenstein’s Implied Anthropology: Remarks on Wittgenstein’s Notes on Frazer“, in: History and Theory 10, 84–89. Schulte, Joachim (1990a) Chor und Gesetz. Wittgenstein im Kontext, Frankfurt a. M. Schulte, Joachim (1990b) „Zur ‚morphologischen Methode‘ bei Goethe und Wittgenstein“, in: Schulte 1990a, 11–42. Schulte, Joachim (1990c) „Glaube und Aberglaube“, in: Schulte 1990a, 43–58. Schulte, Joachim (2003) „Goethe and Wittgenstein on Morphology“, in: Breithaupt/Raatzsch Kremberg, 55–72. Smith, Jonathan Z. (1973) „When the Bough breaks“, in: History of Religions 12, 342–371. Stern, David G. (2013) „Wittgenstein’s Lectures on Ethics, Cambridge 1933“, in: Wittgenstein-Studien 4, 191–205. Stern, David/Citron, Gabriel/Rogers, Brian (2013) „Moore’s Notes on Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933. Text, Context, and Content“, in: Nordic Wittgenstein Review 2, 161–179. Stocking, George W. Jr. (1995) After Tylor. British Social Anthropology 1888–1951, Madison. Tambiah, Stanley Jeharaja (1990) Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality, Cambridge. Vickery, John B. (1973) The Literary Impact of the Golden Bough, Princeton. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1984–1989) Werkausgabe, 8 Bde., Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, hrsg. v. James Carl Klagge und Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1994ff.) Wiener Ausgabe, hrsg. v. Michael Nedo, Wien/New York. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998f.) Wittgenstein’s Nachlaß. Text and Facsimile Version. The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford/New York. Wittgenstein, Ludwig/Waismann, Friedrich (2003) The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle. Original German texts and English translations. Transcribed, ed. and with an introduction by Gordon Baker, London u.a.

Lars Albinus

Wittgenstein, Frazer, and the Apples of Sodom Abstract: It is my aim in this article to take a closer look on the points of view taken by James George Frazer and Ludwig Wittgenstein concerning the way in which we try to make the life and magical practice of indigenous people understandable to ourselves. Taking my point of departure in Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough, I attempt to grasp it in light of a phase in Wittgenstein’s thinking where an interest in grammar gradually came to substitute his concern with the logical order of language. I also find that his disapproving remarks on Frazer’s endeavor to explanation human behavior rationally blend in with similar points of criticism directed against the evolutionist view of Ernest Renan as well as the causally explanatory attitude of Sigmund Freud. Finally, I undertake to bring out how Wittgenstein’s later remarks on The Golden Bough exchange his earlier denunciation with a more forthright attempt to determine the kind of impression magic rites may make on us.

1 I ntroduction A lot has been said and written about Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough (GB), not least because of the perplexing brevity of his comments. Truncated as they seem and allegedly not penned down for the purpose of publication, they harbor a complex of possible implications in their own right as well as reflecting a development in Wittgenstein’s thinking. Moreover, a strict division between anthropology and philosophy, if such is called for, is unsettled by Wittgenstein’s comments. But of course they are themselves philosophical and as such they create another crevice, namely that between a scientific hypothesis, on the one hand, and a philosophical reflection, on the other. That such a distinction has not ceased to be controversial, not least within the field of philosophy, is sufficient reason to consult, once again, these remarks for what they offer, if not by way of solution, then at least by way of clarification. However, in this article the main focus shall not so much be on the initial remarks from 1931 (stemming from MS 110), where Wittgenstein took pains to expose the errors of Frazer’s view on magic as pseudo-science, as on the later remarks (comprised in

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MS 143),1 where the source material collected in the GB2 functions rather like a stepping stone for Wittgenstein’s own, and now more elaborated, ponderings on the impression of magic.3 My point of departure is the intellectual climate around the turn of the previous century in which Frazer and Wittgenstein conceived their notions of human forms of life, and my aim in this respect is to extract the inclinations behind their different views. This being a philosophical investigation, I naturally situate myself in Wittgenstein’s camp, but the goal is not to add to the criticism of Frazer, albeit condoning much of what had already be held against his stance, but rather to understand better his own proclivities. Yet, first of all, the goal is to come to apprehend as clearly as possible why Wittgenstein would want to hold fast to an impression of magic that was unsettling.

2 Times of Change I think it is worth viewing the contradiction between Wittgenstein’s philosophical and Frazer’s anthropological view in light of their time, stretching from the late 19th century, when Frazer began his work on the GB, to the first decades of the 20th century when Wittgenstein conceived his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP). In this period, the belief in the rational progress of mankind and the positivity of scientific knowledge was very strong. Logical empiricism saw the light of day, and it became philosophically fashionable to dismiss metaphysics and religion as being nonsensical (albeit admitting the latter to be emotionally and aesthetically stimulating). In general, the time was ripe for a no-nonsense empiricism, in other words, it was a time in which it actually made sense to confine the linguistic meaning of a sentence to the method of verification, that is, to knowing how to demonstrate its empirical conditions of validity. As is well known, it was

1 Although Rhees claimed that the exact remarks of MS 143 could not have been written down before 1936 (and probably stem from the 40s), some of the themes (for instance, about the Beltane Fire Festival) that I am going to deal with in the article were already present in the lectures of 1933, which is evident from the notes by Moore, cf. Rothhaupt and Westergaard in this volume. 2 Since Wittgenstein referred to the abridged version from 1922, I shall refer to this in connection with his comments, but otherwise refer to the longer version from 1913. 3 G. E. Moore’s notes from Wittgenstein’s 6th lecture on 9 May bear witness to the fact that Wittgenstein was already engaged with Frazer’s comments on the Beltane Fire Festival in 1933 (see Lecture 4a, cf. David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron (eds.) in this volume), which means that we should be careful not to locate the main gist of MS 143 too securely within the latest phase of his thinking. Having said that, the thoughts about language games and family resemblance, which take up a prominent role in PI, are clearly at the brink of conception already in 33.



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actually Wittgenstein, still in his early phase, who presented this very criterion to his short-time companions in the Vienna Circle.4 Yet, Wittgenstein came to realize that by viewing language as a logical depiction of the world, he had been dismissing the nonsensical use of language rather than trying to grasp its pragmatic implications. Increasingly occupied by the complexity of the actual use of language, he came to exchange his notion of a logical order of propositions with his idea of grammar as rules pertaining to various uses of language. The change of scene from logics to practice, as it were, may, apart from internal reasons, also reflect currents of existential awareness that counterbalanced positivist pretentions as, for instance, in art and literature which offered ways of expressing the pre-cognitive condition of being, while, at the same time, being dismissive of classical metaphysics. Owing to a widespread realization that there was more to the world of humans than objective cognizance, new ways of thinking were developed, inspired not least by Heidegger and, therefore, directed at being in the world as a precondition for conceiving it. Thus, it might not be far-fetched to suggest that Heidegger’s path from Husserl’s logical investigations focusing on eidetic vision to his own phenomenological focus on Dasein was related in spirit to Wittgenstein’s turning away from logic formality towards a pragmatic view on language and form of life.5 And why would Frazer, for instance, embark on such a vast journey through the sources on past and present cultures if it were not for a passionate interest in knowing about other forms of life – buying into the thought that it was necessary to know more than one culture in order to understand any culture at all.6 The very idea that in order to gain a deeper knowledge of mankind one would have to familiarize oneself with other cultures was a surviving trait from Romanticism, but it was urged in a new direction by the idea of evolution towards of higher stage of rationality, which owed its increasing impact

4 According to Moore, Wittgenstein refers to this principle as “[t]he sense of a proposition is the way in which it is verified” as late as 1930, in his opening lectures of the Lent term, while discussing the relations between expressions, sentences and propositions. But two years later, he pointed out, in his May lectures, that the meaning of verification was anything but unambiguous and that in some statements such as “I’ve got a toothache” it made no sense at all, cf. PO: 59. The view he seemed to develop was that the meaning of a proposition was determined by grammar and not by verification unless the grammar already provided the means for such as in a hypothesis (PO: 60). 5 Thus Rorty: “What the younger Heidegger tells us about the sociohistorical situation of Dasein is just what the older Wittgenstein tells us about our situation in regard to language – that when we try to transcend it by turning metaphysical we become self-deceptive, inauthentic” (1991: 52). 6 This view goes back to Max Müller who famously stated that “[h]e who knows one [religion] knows none” (1873: 16).

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to the philosophical idealism of Hegel, as well as the positivism of Comte and the naturalism of Darwin. However, it was not least this evolutionary focus that became a stumbling-block for Wittgenstein in his initial reading of Frazer.7 Some of the prominent authors and historians of the time as, for instance, Robert Musil and Oswald Spengler, the latter of whom was a profound inspiration for Wittgenstein, likewise disregarded the cultural optimism and voiced a sensation of darker impulses. I am not suggesting that Wittgenstein’s principal issues with the implications of a historical hypothesis can be reduced to this growing skepticism against the ethically tinged faith invested in scientific knowledge, but I dare to say that his alertness towards the bleakness of metaphysics and his lack of interest in the alleged triumph of historical progress was influenced by contemporary tendencies, not least the atmosphere of fin-de-siècle in Vienna.8

3 The Apples of Sodom Being a classicist, Frazer wrestled with the problem of metaphysics by way of Platonic idealism. Thus, in his essay on Plato, conceived in 1879 (cf. Frazer 1930), he pointed out that Plato committed a mistake by taking the Socratic theory of knowledge to imply that the forms of knowledge and the forms of being were identical. Instead, Frazer subscribed to the view that “[t]he philosophy of nature is after all the philosophy of mind” (1930: 64f.). As it stands, one would be inclined to think that Frazer hereby took the first steps in suggesting an anthropological level of understanding that served to bring every product of the human mind, including theories of natural science, onto a general footing of mental manifestations. This would be in tune with the professed attempt, pervading the pages of GB, to understand nothing but ‘the human mind’ in its entirety (cf. MacCormack 1984: 158), but it is, at the same time, fundamentally at odds with his attempt to transgress the boundaries of thinking by taking his own point of departure in the scientifically assured concordance between thought and fact. Although his work is full of reservations, including a professed insecurity as to the lasting value of

7 This becomes obvious when we compare the suggestions for an ‘introduction’ to the collection of squiggle-marked notes, the so-called Kringel-Buch (KB), which also comprised the remarks on Frazer, cf. KB: 15–63. Compare especially the introductory remarks §62 and §67, written in November 1930, where Wittgenstein explicitly denounces any interest in evolutionary thought, with the remarks on Frazer which were to follow on from February 1931 and onwards, §95ff. (KB, cf. PO: 118ff. for correspondence). 8 Cf. Janik/Toulmin, 1973: 177; 239ff.



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his theoretical outlook, he sticks to the basics of an evolutionary hypothesis, suggesting, for instance, by way of futuristic dramatization that “magic may one day become the waking realities of science” (cf. Frazer 1913, 7/2: 306f.). There is, after all, no doubt in Frazer’s mind that we have gained an objective knowledge of the world thanks to the development of scientific standards of empirical investigation.9 This means that the forms of knowledge and the forms of being were to coincide for Frazer as they did for Plato. Of course, the progression towards knowledge was the opposite to that of Plato in that Frazer took his point of departure in worldly data, but the exchange of philosophical ideas for scientific concepts does not change the fact the he came to endorse the belief in a correspondence (between forms of thought and forms of reality) that he originally scolded Platonic idealism for holding. This difference is significant, of course, since it shows Frazer to be just as committed an empiricist as Plato was a committed idealist. However, Frazer’s empiricism harbored a tension which, although philosophically arresting, did not seem to trouble him. On the one hand, the empirical commitment led to a vast collection of source material serving to demonstrate the diversity of human nature; on the other hand, it formed the ontological background for a generalizing interpretation of this material. Thus, he set out to explain the whole range of cultural manifestations from the point of view of a single cultural outlook, the historical limitation of which he never seemed to question. Yet, as already hinted at, Frazer was far from being pompous in his theoretical stance. He certainly condoned the evolutionary spirit saturating the intellectual climate of his time, but often enough he articulated apparently deep-felt reservations about the whole project, writing, for instance, that “now as always, I hold all my theories very lightly and am ever ready to modify or abandon them in the light of evidence” and that “we who spend our years in searching for solutions of these insoluble problems are like Sisyphus perpetually rolling his stone uphill only to see it revolve again into the valley” (Frazer 1936: v). Most interestingly, he could also hold that “[t]he advance of knowledge is an infinite progression toward a goal that forever recedes” (Frazer 1913, 7/2: 306). In the same vein, he admits that “[t]he fair-seeming fruit of knowledge too often turns out to be apples of Sodom” (Frazer 1927: 420–421), by which phrase he implicitly refers

9 The dispute about the scientific correspondence criterion of truth should repeat itself later on, when E. E. Evans-Pritchard to some extend can be said to endorse it (cf. Evans-Pritchard 1976 [1937]), while Peter Winch, who was heavily influenced by Wittgenstein, opposed it by famously stating that: “Reality is not what gives language sense. What is real and what is unreal shows itself in the sense that language has” (Winch 1999 [1964]: 346]).

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to what is described by Josephus10 and Tacitus11 as apples growing in the vicinities of Sodom, externally of fair appearance, but turning to smoke and ashes when plucked. His empiricist commitment here favors the descriptive breadth rather than the explanatory depth of his work, and we notice Frazer’s indication of the elusive nature of cultural phenomena being part of the fascination they enact upon the observer’s mind. Thus, he also acknowledged that our efforts in understanding the past may often be influenced by our own experiences, thus testifying to the inevitable subjectivity of interpretation. While condoning Ernest Renan’s theory of Adonis, for example, he also takes it to be “deeply tinged by passionate memories” of Renan himself (Frazer 1913, 4/1: 235). How different is this attitude, we might ask, from Wittgenstein’s late remark that the impression which something like a magical practice makes on us stems “from an inner experience” (PO: 147)? I find it reasonable to assume that Wittgenstein’s ongoing interest in Frazer’s work was caused by an accompanying fascination with its associative structure rather than by an inclination to keep criticizing the annoying premises of cultural and scientific arrogance. However, back in 1930 a few months prior to his review of GB, he noticed, just as Frazer did himself, a similar attitude in Renan and reacted, in this specific regard, sternly against the faith invested in “scientific explanation” (KB: 38, §59). First of all, he was baffled by Renan’s claim that, at some point in the past, primitive man began to speculate about the nature of events like ‘birth’, ‘sickness’, ‘death’, ‘sleep’, and ‘dreams’. In Wittgenstein’s eyes this reference to some evolutionary causality was utterly off the mark.12 He found it inconceivable, owing to the daily occurrence of these natural events, that a certain stage in evolution should compel man to wonder about them. The fact that such events might now and again strike us as strange and thus be the cause of wonder or marvel (Staunen) was a completely different matter. To regard those forms in which such marvel is expressed as primitive, as in ancient myths and rituals, was itself a primitive gesture, on Renan’s part. His naivety was to believe that “die Erklärung der Wissenschaft könne das Staunen heben” (KB §59). The point of interest for philosophy, as Wittgenstein saw it, was not how we human beings may understand our historical development as a species, but how we may at any time understand ourselves, including our urge for historical or causal explanations. Thus, he concludes his remark on

10 War of the Jews (BJ), iv. 8, §4. 11 Hist. v. 6. 12 Renan actually adds that even today it is only a few who are able to understand how these events form our natural constitution, a point that Wittgenstein shows no inclination to comment on.



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Renan by normatively stating that “zum Staunen muss der Mensch – und vielleicht Völker – aufwachen. Die Wisssenschaft ist ein Mittel um ihn wieder einzusschläfern” (KB §59). Contrary to how it may seem at first glance, Wittgenstein’s point is not to disqualify the validity of theoretical conjectures on the premises of scientific explanation. His objection is far more modest, yet also far more relentless. What he says is that we should dismiss theoretical or hypothetical conjectures altogether as misplaced in coming to grips with our impression of natural and cultural events (or ‘the facts of life’). What the scientific explanation does is rather to substitute the impression, or put it to sleep, as it were, by demystifying it. However, this does not change the significance of the events in our life as Wittgenstein points out, for instance, in his early remarks on Frazer: “Every explanation is after all an hypothesis. But an hypothetical explanation will be of little help to someone, say, who is upset because of love. – It will not calm him … One would like to say: This and that incident have taken place; laugh, if you can” (PO: 123). If a hypothetical explanation actually makes us laugh at the ‘stupidity’ of magical practice, aren’t we are in fact laughing at the stupidity of the explanation we impose on the practice, rather than the practice itself? Frazer was not laughing, however, and he certainly did not regard the beliefs in magic and myth as stupid, contrary to how Wittgenstein makes it look (cf. PO: 125).13 Wittgenstein was not the only one to speak of the depth of magic and regard it as something we know from our own experiences. In Frazer’s eyes the dispassionate observer whose studies lead him to fathom “the depth of magic” is naturally expected to react with anxiety inasmuch as magic presents a “menace to civilization” (Frazer 1913, I/1: 236). What he seems to believe, according to MacCormack, is that a magical way of thinking is “merely resting beneath a fragile surface of accepted custom” and is anything but just a thing of the past (MacCormack 1984: 171).14 Moreover, contrary to Renan’s evolutionary psychology, as it seems, Frazer holds “the principles of association … absolutely fundamental to the working of the human mind” (cf. MacCormack 1984: 154), apparently much

13 Wittgenstein’s point may, in fact, be taken in a more subtle sense, such that on the premises on Frazer’s hypothetical explanation alone we would be entitled to regard magic as stupid, which means, in other words, that Frazer was none the less stupid for respecting primitive thought on the imposed premises of pre-scientific misconception of nature. 14 See also Anders Klostergaard Petersen in this volume. Klaus Puhl’s very intriguing article on Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘perspicuous representation’, the insights of which I am going to employ below, is, however, representative of a common mistake exemplified in the statement that: “[T]he picture Frazer wanted to draw was one of utter difference and discontinuity between the primitive and the contemporary Western mind” (Puhl 2006: 33).

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in line with Wittgenstein’s reaction to Renan.15 So what is the difference, then, between Frazer’s and Wittgenstein’s way of looking at myth and magic? Apart from the friction in Frazer’s view, that is, between the self-assured foothold in the enlightenment of scientific knowledge and his appreciation of the always luring susceptibility to ‘superstition’, he sticks to the view of a magic as a survival of pre-scientific thought. “But an hypothetical connecting link”, writes Wittgenstein, “should in this case do nothing but direct the attention to the similarity, the relatedness, of the facts” (PO: 133). Thus, instead of trying to dissolve ‘the principle of association’ by explaining it, Wittgenstein holds on to it while reflecting on the role it plays in our impression. In this respect, a diachronic reconstruction passes the problem by, or to put it even more strongly: A hypothetical explanation turns our eyes away from the interrelatedness of our whole thinking, of our use of language as it is embedded in a form of life. By way of illustrating this point, Wittgenstein refers to the internal relationship between a circle and an ellipse which is brought out by gradually converting “an ellipse into a circle; but not in order to assert that a certain ellipse actually, historically, had originated from a circle (evolutionary hypothesis), but only in order to sharpen our eye for a formal connection” (PO: 133). This formal connection Wittgenstein calls a “perspicuous representation” and it becomes a leading principle in his Philosophical Investigations (PI §122), intimately related to the concepts of ‘form of life’ and ‘language games’ (PI §19, §23).16

4 Grammar and Perspicuous Representation One of Wittgenstein’s points in respect to this ‘perspicuous representation’17 in the context of RFGB was that it did not add any new knowledge to our under-

15 It should be added, though, that Frazer acknowledges his debt to Tylor’s evolutionary thesis about the savage philosopher, and that the principle of association takes the forms of magic belief in contiguity and similarity in primitive cultures (cf. MacCormack 1984: 154). 16 See, for instance, Hutto 2007: 302f. 17 The introduction of the concept of a perspicuous representation in Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer was, at the same time, a slightly disguised reference to Goethe’s poem Metamorphose der Pflanzen which reflects the author’s belief that some Urpflanze must exist that provides the connecting links between all other plants, cf. Schulte 2003: 62. For Wittgenstein the thought of a historical derivation provided only one among other possible representations of the similarities between the single phenomena. What mattered was not a first cause, but an order owing to the appearance of similarities, and thus he was inspired by Goethe’s morphological approach, that is, his intuitive search for a principle of form. Wittgenstein undoubtedly condoned, as Spengler



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standing of something as, for instance, our impression of a magic custom, but consisted in connecting this object of impression with other similar objects, thus creating links (Zwischenglieder) between the phenomena.18 The very issue of seeing things in a clarifying perspective was itself connected with other problems occupying him at the time, namely that of making proper distinctions between ‘propositions’ and ‘grammar’, that is, between statements and rules for the use of language (PO: 69f.). A complexity of thoughts evolved around this issue, and we shall restrict ourselves, for the present purpose, to take up his observation that we often tend to conflate ‘cause’ with ‘reason’, as if they shared the same grammar.19 This mistake pervaded Freud’s work, for instance, when he confused the disclosure of associative connections with the proposition of a natural cause, thus reducing his own interpretation of dreams to the discovery of underlying causes which were, in due course, to be acknowledged by the patient herself.20

did, Goethe’s admonition not to “look for anything behind the phenomena” (cf. Klagge 2003: 23) as becomes obvious, for instance, in his conception of ‘family resemblance’ introduced by a treatment of ‘games’ (PI §66). Here, he advises us not to look for some hidden substance, i.e., something common to all games, but rather “to look and see”, that is, to look at – rather than for  – various games and then discover various criss-crossing affinities. Surely, Wittgenstein’s concept of a perspicuous representation had a crucial role to play in his Philosophical Investigations, and not merely in relation with his reference to family resemblances, but also as a means to provide us with a clearer view of our use of words in general, as becomes explicitly clear in PI §122. 18 The almost identical formulations that appear in PO: 133 and in PI §122 invite one to think that the RFGB has already taken a crucial step into the pragmatic perspective of Wittgenstein’s later thinking, and although I certainly tend to think that the engagement with Frazer’s work is accompanied by thoughts about grammar and the various uses of language which becomes a leading issue in PI (as well as in the Blue and Brown Books), there are still undeniable signs of a Tractarian perspective at work in RFGB, cf. Lars Madsen in this volume. Thus, one should be careful not to identify the meaning of ‘Übersichtliche Darstellung’ as identical in the two instances. However, what I take the concept of perspicuous interpretation to imply already in RFGB is certainly no fixed order of formal similarities, but rather points of possible navigation aiming at comprehension rather than explanation, see Hutto (2007: 304), who interprets the use of the concept in PI in similar terms, and Eldridge who directly reads the ‘perspicuous representation’ of RFGB in the light of PI (Eldridge 1987: 241). 19 This point along with the following comments on Freud and Frazer are rendered through Moore’s recollection of the seminars, cf. Wittgenstein, PO: 46–114, specifically p. 108 for the above reference. 20 Similarly, Rhees refers to a conversation on Freud he had with Wittgenstein in the 40s, where Wittgenstein pointed out, according to Rhees’ notes, that it is obscure to insists, as Freud does, that “‘[d]eterminism applies to the mind as truly as to physical things’ […], because when we think of causal laws in physical things we think of experiments. We have nothing like this in connection with feelings and motivation”, cf. LC: 42. As it stands, this is not at all obvious, however.

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Referring specifically to Freud’s notion of the joke (Witz), Wittgenstein points out that he confounds the reason for laughing with a subconscious cause. Whereas the grammar of physics tells you to look for causes which can explain some event as being a special kind of reaction, there is nothing similar to that in the agreement between patient and doctor in psychoanalysis.21 Thus, it was inconsistent of Freud to look for natural, though purely psychological, causes, on the one hand, and claim, on the other hand, that “psycho-analysis is successful only if the patient agrees to the explanation offered by the analyst”, since “what a patient agrees to can’t be a hypothesis as to the cause of his laughter, but only that so-and-so was the reason why he laughed” (PO: 108).22 Clearly, Freud’s inclination to regard the patient’s acknowledgment of some hitherto unrealized connection as a justification of his hypothetical reconstruction (of a cause working on a subconscious level) was unfounded. Rather, in Wittgenstein’s eyes, the practice of interpretation in psychoanalysis (especially Freud’s engagement with jokes) is much more in line with aesthetics than with the search for “causal connections” in psychology (PO: 105, 107). When Freud believed to offer a causal explanation of some mental reaction, by lining up a network of associations, what he did was in fact to give “a wonderful representation” (PO: 107) with which the patient might identify (even perhaps for various reasons), but nothing more. In other words, the grammar of this enterprise not only included, but also depended upon, the patient’s agreement, and in this sense, clearly, “there is nothing analogous to this in Physics” (PO: 108). My point is that something very similar could be said of Frazer’s investigations in GB which also engaged Wittgenstein at the time. Wittgenstein saw Freud

What would be the exact argument of precluding the possibility, in principle, of a finely calibrated and verifiable monitoring of emotional reactions to stimuli in a controlled environment? Yet, Wittgenstein offers much stronger arguments in his conversation with Rhees, for instance, by pointing out that Freud makes a mistake by reducing dreams and associations to mono-causal explanations. The possibility of making associations on the grounds of an arbitrary arrangement of things is no indication of a causal connection between the latter and the former. Moreover, one of the main premises behind Freud’s general hypothesis is that dreams can be regarded as a form of language. As Wittgenstein remarked, however, this would entail that not only should we be able to translate dreams into the vocabulary of ordinary language, but also vice versa, which would clearly be inconceivable, LC: 48. 21 For a rather similar, and famous, critique of Freud, see Ricoeur 1970: 65f. 22 In his Big Typescript, Wittgenstein briefly deals once again with this point by saying that “we can only convict someone else of a mistake if he acknowledges that this really is the expression of his feeling”, and he adds that “only if he acknowledges it as such, is it the correct expression (Psychoanalysis)” (PO: 165). This consideration bears an obvious resemblance to Charles Taylor’s notion of the autonomy of human ‘self-interpretation’ (1985: 45ff.).



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and Frazer succumb to the same mistake of seeking a hypothetical explanation where, in fact, something else was called for. Moreover, in the context of the Vienna Circle, he had raised the same objection earlier against Schlick and Waismann in a discussion about ‘aesthetic value’. Opposing the search for an explanation, he is quoted as having said that “whatever I was told I would reject … not because the explanation was false but because it was an explanation” (cf. Waismann 1979: 116). But why is it that an explanation of a cause differs so radically from the acknowledgment of a reason? During his lectures in Cambridge, Wittgenstein came to view the difference in light of grammar rather than in light of the unspeakable as he probably did back in Vienna. In other words, the interest in grammar came to substitute his own – as well as the positivist – notion of logical order as a necessary condition for operating with a calculus of meaning and a truth table for the correspondence between a statement and a state of affairs. Buying into Wittgenstein’s pragmatic notion of grammar, we might say that the reason for positivism to seek out a natural cause behind some aesthetic impression is internally related to the reason for following a certain grammar of causal explanations, yet not externally linked to the rules of aesthetics as, for instance, in judgments of taste or artistic expressions. The mistake is to take the grammar of physics to be the one and only order of all things as if the reality of an impression, for instance, is identical with the reality of an underlying physical cause. An “aesthetic puzzlement” won’t be solved by an explanation which is no longer part of the grammar of aesthetics (PO: 105). According to Moore, Wittgenstein referred to examples such as “Why does this impress us?”, “Why is this beautiful?” or “Why will this bass not do?” (PO: 107). He thus seemed to hold that one only comes to terms with these puzzlements by sticking to the level of aesthetic reasons. We mistake the nature of an impression if we exchange the impressive object with the nature of the psychological response. We are looking in the wrong direction. Instead, in a perspicuous representation one establishes an overview of objects interrelated by similarities between the impressions they make. If a bass line doesn’t work, one may try another, using one’s experience. Suddenly it may work. Everything falls into place, as it were. No explanatory discovery would have done the job. The difference is a difference in grammar and technique, belonging to different games of expressions and propositions. A lot of philosophical energy has gone into commenting on Wittgenstein’s early lectures, especially his remarks on Frazer, a fact that testifies to the difficulty of grasping the finer points of his text. First of all, it is not hard to offer arguments against it. Although, causal explanations may not offer any immediate satisfaction to emotional or aesthetic responses, this doesn’t imply that such explanations cannot be given or that we might not, in principle, be able to explain why we feel that a given explanation is irrelevant. The incongruence between experience

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and its actual cause may even be explained as part of the cause itself, namely as constitutive of the very function of self-delusion.23 Something like this would be the Freudian way of putting it, and the question is, whether it is basically a sound way of solving the “the problems which trouble us” (cf. PI, II: xiv (p. 243)) or not? From the point of view of natural science adopted by Freud, a theory would only do the job of explanation if the cause ex hypothesi could, in fact, be shown to be the real cause.24 And this is exactly what is inconceivable, as Wittgenstein pointed out in a conversation with Rhees in the 40s (LC: 48). Freud would have no way of knowing whether an interpretation has reached the final causa inasmuch as the grammar of interpretation differs from the grammar of causal explanation. Hence, when Freud went on to explain myths on the same grounds as dreams, claiming to have “explained how it came about that anybody should think or propound a myth of that sort” (cf. LC: 51), in fact, “[h]e has not given a scientific explanation of the ancient myth. What he has done is to propound a new myth. The attractiveness of the suggestion, for instance, that all anxiety is a repetition of the anxiety of the birth trauma, is just the attractiveness of a mythology” (LC:  51).25 The appeal of a mythological framework of connecting links shone forth from Freud’s work as it did from Frazer’s. In order to further our understanding of Wittgenstein’s reasons for taking exception to the search for causal explanations (bearing in mind that he was thinking of mono-causal explanations) in relation to dreams, aesthetics, and magical beliefs, we might gain some insight from taking a glance at his simultaneous rejection of a search for the ultimate order of things. Looking at the way in which language works in our lives (regardless whether we are engaged with magical or scientific practices, mathematical proofs, or creating works of art), we may come to realize that there is no common order, or grounding stability, other

23 In this respect, Wittgenstein challenges Freud’s view of ‘camouflaged wish fulfilments’ by asking, as Rhees remembers it, how it is conceivable to speak of a kind of fulfilment when it is exactly the case that “the wish is not allowed to be fulfilled, and something else is hallucinated instead”? And “[i]t becomes impossible to say whether it is the wish or the censor that is cheated” (LC: 47). 24 Thus, “influenced by the 19th-century idea of dynamics”, Freud “wanted to find some one explanation which would show what dreaming is. He wanted to find the essence of dreaming”, as Rhees puts it on behalf of Wittgenstein (LC: 48). For this reason Freud wouldn’t be able to admit that he was only “partly right” (LC: 48), and thus he misconceived the fruitfulness of his own approach. Thus, Habermas speaks along similar lines of “das szientistische Selbstmissverständnis der Metapsychology” in his elaborated discussion of Freud (Habermas 1973: 300–332). 25 Surprisingly enough, Freud actually may have come to realize something of the sort by stating, in his revised introduction to psychoanalysis, that “[t]he theory of the instincts is so to say our mythology”, SE, 22: 95.



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than language itself. And language is what flows between various aspects of use, depending on a given situation or a given task. This is, in part, what is implied by the concept of ‘form of life’. The attempt to pin down one specific use as the only one capable of asserting or revealing the content of all the others, including that which particular utterances fail to express or succeed to hide, rests on the premise that something must be at work behind the expression and/or impression.26 To look at it from the other end, who would dream of rejecting a scientific hypothesis on the grounds that it is not aesthetically appealing? In such case, the scientist may be persuaded to admit that the hypothesis needs rephrasing, but only because of an expressive deficiency, not because of any deficiency in content. However, in works of art, as in magical rites, such a distinction loses its meaning completely. The content is the aesthetic – or, as in forms of practice, the social – manifestation. The error lurking behind the positivist agenda of the Vienna Circle as well as Freud’s and Frazer’s scientific hypotheses is that they feel obliged to look for something behind or underneath the manifestation so that the cause, thus exposed, may also explain the impression made upon us. Yet, whereas this game of reconstruction works for the understanding of natural events, it simply exchanges one reason for another when applied to a symbolic practice, aesthetic or magical (or even mathematical) as it may be, with the result of exchanging one puzzlement with another without getting any closer to resolving it. Instead of trying to get to the imagined bottom of things, by way of scientific scrutiny, we may simply realize that the ‘why’ of an aesthetic judgment differs from the ‘why’ of a natural cause by way of grammar. Otherwise one would end up claiming that the expression “this is beautiful” would be synonymous with the proposition that “something in my brain stimulates me to say ‘this is beautiful’”. The point is not, of course, to deny that such stimulus may be present, but rather that the expression of finding something beautiful is involved in other rules than the expression or proposition of a neural causation.27 The grammar of aesthetic

26 I shall postpone a discussion of the relationship between expression and impression to the latter part of this article. Yet an example of a misplaced hypothesis would be to try to reduce either the feeling of ‘getting it right’ or the exclamation: ‘got it!’, when rehearsing a bass-line, to anything other than purely aesthetic criteria. 27 Moreover, as pointed out above, Wittgenstein’s point is also that no hypothetical reconstruction satisfies the puzzlement or marvel of an aesthetic experience. Thus, Cioffi seems justified in his distinction between a conceptual fallacy (pertaining to the conflation of cause and reason, scientific propositions and artistic expressions, etc.) and the incongruity between an explanation, on the one hand, and “what we really want”, on the other (Cioffi 1998: 3), as in the quotation referred to above, cf. PO: 123. Whereas I shall return to the latter aspect below, for the moment, I shall stick to the former.

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expressions simply differs from the grammar of psychological explanations and the attempt to reduce the former to the latter is, eventually, the attempt to do away with grammar all together. Whereas this might be a promising prospect according to a positivist inclination, it is bound to backfire according to Wittgenstein. More precisely, the effort to dissolve the conventionality of grammar into a correspondence between statement and matter of fact easily makes one forget that the very principle of correspondence as a criterion of truth cannot itself be grounded in any matter of fact, but only works by following a rule of grammar. Thus, what Freud and Frazer did and what they think they did, when they reconstructed a series of significant relations in the source material, were two different things (PO: 107; LC: 51). As Klaus Puhl has pointed out in relation to Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘perspicuous representation’, the arrangement of associated symbols, practices or notions, does not “present something that exists self-identically and objectively understood by the subject before it is made perspicuous” (Puhl 2006: 30). Rather, it is the active construction of these connections that provide the representation with meaning. Puhl actually employs Freud’s own concept of Nachträchlichkeit (retroactivity) in order to clarify this point. In fact, Freud seems to have been very much aware that a neurotic reaction was not triggered by the reactivation of a traumatic experience in childhood, but was rather created by a sudden association which retroactively construed an incomprehensible experience as traumatic (Puhl 2006: 24). Originally, the child had no way of fully apprehending its own experience, and only later, when puberty sets in, it becomes capable of reworking or re-transcribing earlier memories, whether real or not.28 The association which triggers the remembrance is thus activated by an event that, although subsequent, becomes meaningful only in the light of the former, and vice versa (Puhl 2006: 27). As Puhl sees it, this cyclical connection of links has much in common with Wittgenstein’s notion of perspicuous representation. It does not offer any new knowledge but rearranges what is already known in a fashion that provides it with meaning. The obvious difference is, however, that Freud regards this as taking place on a subconscious level, that is, underneath the conscious agree-

28 Quite often, Freud’s own reservations are overlooked, much like the reservations of Frazer. In An Infantile Neurosis, for instance, Freud does not claim that symptoms similar to those of Hans (the patient) always indicate an actual experience of the ‘primal scene’ (of sexual intercourse) when they occur later in life, but only that Hans who suffered from an infantile neurosis was too young to have concocted such a scene by his imagination alone (SE, 17: 55f.). Thus, Freud is not claiming that Hans’ neurotic condition is necessarily caused by an original experience of his father mounting his mother from behind, but rather that the patient subconsciously reconstructs this or some equivalent experience to contain this meaning.



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ment as to its meaning. This thesis only works because he ascribes the interpretative activity to another subject, “ein Anderes Ich”, working behind the back of the conscious I, as it were. This difference, whether realized by Puhl or not, is crucial. It seems obvious that Freud, in order to justify his analytical method, took pains to objectify the clinical material – dreams, fantasies, free associations – as symptoms. After all, he was a doctor and a scientist. Yet, it is exactly this objectification that betrays his confusion (cf. LC: 7, 48, 51). By reducing the interpretative level of retroactivity to the mechanics of symptoms revealing causes in the psychic system, Freud throws out the baby with the bathwater, as it were. If the notion of retroactivity is to be taken seriously, the meaning of joining links is established only in the perspicuous representation produced in the communication between analyst and patient. In all likelihood, Wittgenstein had something similar in mind when comparing the task of psychoanalysis with aesthetic judgments. In this case, it should be noted, as Puhl also remarks, that the general translation of ‘übersichtliche Darstellung’ as ‘perspicuous representation’ is problematic (Puhl 2006: 30, note 6). The very concept ‘Dar-stellung’, ‘to-put-something-there’, indicates that Wittgenstein did not point to a revocation of something already self-identically present as implicitly suggested by the word ‘re-presentation’, but rather wanted to point to something that emerges from the very construction of joining links.29 Actually in the conversation on Freud’s interpretation of dreams, Wittgenstein told Rhees that “[w]hen a dream is interpreted we might say that it is fitted into a context in which it ceases to be puzzling. In a sense the dreamer re-dreams his dream in surroundings such that it changes” (LC: 45, my emphasis; see also Puhl 2006: 31). Thus, it ceases to be important what the dream ‘was’ in and by itself (We are, of course, aware that when we interpret a dream, we turn its content into the frames of waking thoughts and thereby change it). What matters is the way in which it becomes part of a Darstellung that makes sense, for instance, by drawing

29 It strikes me that Ricoeur’s critique of Freud’s psychoanalytic interpretation of Mona Lisa bears a remarkable affinity with this ingenious remark by Puhl. While acknowledging the brilliancy of Freud’s observations, Ricoeur finds it wrongheaded of him to resolve the artistic expression into the sublimation of a childhood memory (of a smiling mother). Instead, “the memory”, writes Ricoeur, “only exists as a symbolizable absence that lies deep beneath Mona Lisa’s smile [my iteration]. Lost like a memory, the mother’s smile is an empty place within reality; it is the point where all real traces become lost, where the abolished confines one to fantasy […]. The mother and her kisses exist for the first time among work offered to the contemplation of men. Leonardo’s brush does not recreate memory of the mother, it creates it as a work of art […] The work of art is thus both symptom and cure” (Ricoeur 1970: 174). What is thus deep in art has an obvious relation to what Wittgenstein senses as deep in magic.

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attention to some event that we can relate it to. In this respect, Wittgenstein speaks of the aspect of the dream, belonging, in some sense, to the dream itself, but also constitutive of the pattern that the dream is fitted into. Importantly, what makes something an aspect depends on the grammar at work, or the ‘metrics’ as Rhees recalls it (LC: 42), not the ‘thing as such’ as believed by the logical empiricists. And Freud was, after all, a confessed empiricist. Although he regarded the medical search for somatic causes as being insufficient, he was nonetheless lured into employing a grammar belonging to empirical investigation as if the dream were some kind of object in a causal chain of events.30 Contrary to this, Wittgenstein sees the merit of psychoanalysis in its attempt to confront the patient with a possibility of self-interpretation by arranging clusters of association such that all suddenly comes to make sense.31 The same merit might be gathered from GB, providing us with the material for seeing more clearly what we are already part of as cultural beings.32 And furthermore, “as with dreams, … the practice [of magic] is repeated by its interpretation”, that is, “the interpretation belongs to practice”, as Puhl ingeniously points out (2006: 36). Thus, the reason for Wittgenstein’s enduring, or repeated, interest in Frazer’s work owes much to his appreciation of the formal qualities it shared with Freud’s work, that is, the perspicuous collocation of material which enacts a continuing impression on us. (cf. PO: 107; LC: 45) One of the reasons why Wittgenstein became so infuriated with Frazer could be that, contrary to what he might have hoped, he actually recognized the positivist mistake repeated in new clothes, while on the surface Frazer’s work appeared to show something entirely different, namely an interest, not in the logic of

30 The discussion whether or not Freud might be justified in operating with a causal link between the conscious ego and a subconscious, second ego, clearly oversteps the boundaries of this article. It has to suffice in this context to refer to Wittgenstein’s point that it becomes entirely unclear what is meant by ‘a subconscious subject’. It thus raises the suspicion that the grammar of speaking about subjectivity has been violated. 31 As Puhl writes: “In this sense the dream as a meaningful or perspicuous whole only exists in the effects it has on the subject” (2006: 32). 32 According to Moore’s notes (Lecture 6, 9 May), Wittgenstein actually relates his critique of Frazer’s attempt at reconstructing mono-causal explanations of magic with a failure to take aesthetic premises into account. This parallelism is even more obvious in a later lecture of 15 May, where Moore refers to Wittgenstein’s comments on the Beltane Festival and offers the following quotes: “In this case you can observe the same thing being puzzling, as in an aesthetic question. You ask: Why does this thing impress us so much? Frazer thinks he answers this by: This festival has developed from one in which a real man was burnt. I say, this doesn’t do justice to what we feel. It does impress us, because it has a relation to burning a human being, but not necessarily the relation of being developed therefrom. What impresses us is seeing this event along with other similar events.” (Quoted by courtesy of David Stern, Brian Rogers & Gabriel Citron)



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depicting the world, but in other forms of life. And now what did he find in Frazer other than a misplaced attempt to reduce various forms of life to a logical order of world-depiction, the only difference between them and us being that they hadn’t got it right yet?33 If I am correct, this may certainly have been a disappointment and, at first, it may have blinded his eyes to the remaining merits of Frazer’s massive investigations.

5 Keeping the Depth of Magic What is deep about magic should be kept, Wittgenstein wrote in a planned, but later abandoned introduction, to the remarks. The in-depth perspective of human culture that Frazer might have thought he would gain by his comprehensive studies were not deep at all, in Wittgenstein’s eyes, but rather a shallow imposition of Frazer’s own cultural standards on the exotic practices he described. But clearly this was not – and could not have been – Frazer’s intension. Is it, then, that Frazer was just too stupid to realize this? I don’t think so. Actually, the point of departure for Frazer was that the rites of magic in various cultures could not be dismissed as pre-logic superstition. Indeed there was logic in what they were doing, but owing to the lack of knowledge in the real laws of nature, they represented the causal relations as best they could. Frazer searched for an enhanced understanding of universal dispositions in man beyond the view and dominance of Christian ethics and metaphysics. Wittgenstein might actually have acknowledged and appreciated this pretention were it not for the immediate impression that Frazer’s text made on him, namely that he had stopped too early, that he didn’t look hard enough. Or, to put it differently, that he was committed to a way of looking that didn’t realize its own character, its own form as (part of) a form of life. Wittgenstein even went so far as to say that the exclusion of magic (as in the modern self-understanding) has something magical to it (cf. PO: 116). Either he meant it in a loose and derogative sense in line with “Frazer is much more savage than most of his savages” (PO: 131), or his point was that in any attempt to master the surrounding world, or our understanding of it, whether it be scientific or magical, we will have to invoke a relation and stick to it. If it was something like this he had in mind, it may imply that the very practice of representing a relation with the world might stand out as a connecting link between magic and science,

33 See, for instance, James Conant (2002: 89) who compares Wittgenstein’s estimation of Ayer’s ‘shallowness’ with Frazer’s ‘savage’ attitude.

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more obvious in magic than in the empirical investigation, though, since the objective result of the latter tends to downplay, if not even erase, the significance of the very relation that engendered it, whereas in magic the relation remains in focus. Be that as it may, Wittgenstein skipped the introduction and it would be unfair to read too much into sentences that he characterized as bad (schlecht) himself. Another introduction, however, namely that of the so-called Kringel-Buch (KB), may be of interest though it does not directly address a concern with Frazer. Among the first bits, written in 1930 (KB: §72), the year before his remarks on Frazer, Wittgenstein announces his wish to write a book that didn’t appeal to the spirit of Western civilization and progress. Rather than the development of still more complicated structures, he would like to address the attempt to gain clarity and transparency of any possible structure.34 What he has in mind by using the concept of structure obviously includes scientific systems of knowledge. Instead of widening the circle, as it were, in order to understand the world at its periphery, he aims for the center (KB §72). Thus, the reason why Wittgenstein doesn’t look for the progress of knowledge is not because he belittles scientific insight as such, but because he is interested in the one matter which lies beyond its reach, namely its own condition of possibility. It may actually be the very “simplicity and familiarity” of our relation to what we see before our eyes that make us tend to overlook this condition, i.e., the center of the circle. Thus, in the PI (§129) he points out that the real foundations of people’s inquiries never strike them. And after a full stop he continues: “Unless that fact has at some time struck them!” This is when philosophy happens, although it may be realized, at the same time, that philosophy is in no way exempt from being part of the same problem, the difference being, however, that it lies in the nature of philosophy to be occupied with its own premises.35 And this is the kind of investigation that not only separates Wittgenstein’s pretentions from Frazer’s, but also separates a certain philosophical kind of questioning from any theoretical model for empirical investigation whatsoever. With this in mind, we shall turn to the second set of remarks, where I will concentrate on Wittgenstein’s use of adjectives such as ‘sinister’ (Finster), ‘deep’ (tief) and ‘disquieting’ or ‘unsettling’ (beunruhigend), and the way in which they pertain to our impression (Eindruck) of magic rituals. In his comment on GB p. 617–641 (Frazer 1993: 617–641), concerning the Scottish Fire Festival at Beltane, Wittgenstein draws attention to similarities as well as dissimilarities that exist between “all these rites” and compares the spectacle,

34 He alternates between ‘jeder möglichen Struktur’ and ‘welcher Struktur immer’ without seemingly being satisfied with either. 35 Cf. Lars Madsen, forthcoming.



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as it were, with our awareness of “a multiplicity of faces with common features” (PO: 143). This sounds very much like the concept of family resemblances as stated in Philosophical Investigations (§67), the point being that the rituals are not connected by a common substance.36 And even though we are inclined to draw lines, joining the parts that various faces have in common, “part of our account [Betrachtung] would still be missing” (PO: 143). What is missing is “that which brings this picture into connection with our own feelings and thoughts. This part gives the account its depth” (PO: 143). In other words, there is an immediate relation between the depth of the account and the way in which our impression of the ritual makes us realize its relation with our own experiences. Wittgenstein makes this clear by referring to the case Frazer makes of the Druidical fire festivals. It was customary in these festivals to distribute small portions of a cake (the so-called am bonnach beal-tine) among the company of bystanders. The one who got a particular charred piece called cailleach beal-tine was selected for mockery and the pretense of being sacrificed on the pyre (cf. Frazer 1993: 618f.). Now the intricate question in Wittgenstein’s eyes is how this practice may give rise to the impression of something gloomy and sinister? In this respect, he finds that by association with some current practices, as for instance, the vestige of drawing lots or some imagined custom of baking cakes with knobs in honor of a button-maker (PO: 145; cf. Frazer 1993: 619f.), the practice “suddenly gains depth” (PO: 145). In other words, the aspect through which harmless practices of today connect with the former practice of harming a selected victim provides it with depth. Inasmuch as we have before us nothing but innocuous games, the depth lies only in thinking about that derivation (PO: 147). Then again, what makes us think in this way? The evidence for assuming a connection between a deep, or sinister, practice in the past and some harmless practice in the present does not lie in the facts behind a historical hypothesis, as Frazer believes (1993: 619) but, as Wittgenstein says, “rather it is we who ascribe them from an inner experience” (PO: 147). This relation between facts and experience has an experiential character in much the same way as judging the genuineness of expressions of feelings (cf. PI, II: §§354–355). Like we sense the presence of deep sorrow, or some other profound feeling, we may sense the dedication and solemnity of ritual action and wonder about it. What makes Frazer wonder, on the other hand, is merely the kind of (intellectual) reason people might have for believing in the efficacy of the ritual. Presupposing what he has already discussed at some length, namely that fire generally has a cleansing effect and that this is put to use in the Druidical

36 Lecture 3a and 4a (cf. David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron (eds.) in this volume) point in the same direction.

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festivals in order to avert the influence of harmful powers and secure the plentiful growth of crops, he ask himself: “How did it come about that benefits so great and manifold were supposed to be attained by means so simple?” (Frazer 1993: 643). Later on, while dealing with what seems to be symbolic survivals of human sacrifices, he wonders “what is the meaning of burning effigies in the fire at these festivals” (Frazer 1993: 650). Frazer looks for cognitive reasons and logical intentions, where Wittgenstein looks at the practices (as described by Frazer) and reflects on the impression they make on him. Looking at a painting we may likewise feel inclined to contemplate our own aesthetic impression. Of course, this does not prevent us from asking questions as to what might have influenced the painter to create this exact work of art. However, by putting the stress on this interrogation, we might shrink from taking responsibility for our own response. Wittgenstein dwells upon his own response rather than trying to uphold a distance by finding reasons he might or might not share. The way in which he reflects on his own impression may indeed share some similarity with the grammar of evaluating a work of art, as also indicated above, but the impression now at stake is not primarily aesthetic. First of all, it involves the recognition of experiences and social attitudes. It is obvious that what is unsettling about this familiarization with ritual practice has nothing to do with some rational ascription of functionality, but rather with the striking inclination to see oneself as part of this form of life. Thus, the impression he has of the magical beliefs and acts has more in common with the game of constructive realization experienced by the psychoanalytic patient than with the discovery of a functional rationalization working as some kind of machinery in the human unconscious. In order to grasp this, however, without falling prey to the Freudian illusion of ‘interpretative’ science and Frazer’s rationalistic anthropology, a perspicuous representation has to take the place of a causal explanation (including the explanation of misguided causal explanations).37 What the perspicuous’ representation may effectuate, among other things, is to open our eyes for what it is that unsettles us in the impression of a practice. The kind of similarity (with “Children playing robbers”) that makes us appreciate the Beltane festival as just a play does not exhaust our impression. We clearly understand (or could easily be brought to understand) that a “mere dramatic presenta-

37 It has to be noted, though, that Frazer explicitly asks for reasons and not for causes in the psyche (cf. above). Whereas this clearly separates him from Freud, a crucial similarity nevertheless pertains to the explanatory mode of their ‘interpretations’. Frazer’s hypothetical suggestions as to the reasons that make people believe in magical rituals are regarded as completely independent of what they might agree to when confronted with this suggestion, hypothetically speaking.



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tion” lacks the temperament present in a passionate and personally involved performance, be it a child’s play or a ritual sacrifice (PO: 149). However, apart from this difference, even “a wholly cool performance” would make us uncomfortable, if we were to ask for its meaning (Sinn, PO: 149). Irrespective of any actual interpretation (with or without causal implications), it is impossible, Wittgenstein holds, to ignore the peculiar meaninglessness (Sinnlosigkeit) of the presentation (PO: 151), and, accordingly, the meaninglessness of other practices we happen to engage in without an obvious instrumental or cognitive purpose. A few paragraphs before he points out that the impression of something sinister in the ritual cannot be derived entirely from “the suffering of the victim” (PO:  147), since we might witness similar instances of suffering without being affected in the same way. Thus suffering in itself does not seem to provide us with a crucial link. It is not so much the supposed fact of surrendering victims to mockery or even death (in cases of human sacrifices) that is unsettling as it is the fact that it is done by people like us in a recognizable spirit and yet without meaning. What makes us uneasy, apart from the terrible facts of history (imagined or not), lies in recognizing immediately, and without explanation, the “strange things”, which go on in ourselves and others, that is, to discover that our own form of life provides, in principle, the same possibilities of acting as we see in those strange customs. What science effectively does by reconstructing a cognitive error behind these practices is make it look as if such behavior belongs to an unenlightened past, when, in fact, we engage in similar acts all the time. But then again, it is obvious that our sudden impulse to beat the ground with a cane (PO: 137) or hit the table in anger (Lecture 3a, 5 May 1933, cf. David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron (eds.) in this volume) cannot be regarded as errors. They have no cognitive content. That you react to a pain caused by stumbling into a table by avenging yourself on it, “doesn’t mean that you believe you hurt it” (PO: 137). However, “nor need it be a survival from pre-human ancestors” (PO:  137). The whole concept of survival is misplaced. Rather, it is one of the ways in which we express anger. Rituals may express anger in similar ways. Wittgenstein further claims that, in principle, every one of us could invent a ritual such as, for instance, the Beltane Fire Ritual (PO: 151). In acts that appear strange, at a first glance, we may recognize part of our own form of life, if we look close enough. “To carry out a bloody sacrifice” and “to engage in some sort of party games” can, in some instances at least, be seen to share the same “inner nature” (PO: 143f.). By ‘inner nature’, Wittgenstein clearly does not point to some obscure interiority. On the contrary, he refers to “all circumstances under which it is carried out” and which exist, first of all, in “the spirit of the festival” (Geist des Festes, PO: 145). And now, having taken this social dimension into account, he emphasizes that such festi-

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vals are not “made up by one person, so to speak, at random, but rather need an infinitely broader basis if they are to be preserved” (PO: 147).

6 Impression and Expression According to Rush Rhees, who has elaborated on these phrases, “the broader basis” mentioned by Wittgenstein is neither the spirit of the festival as such nor the general inclination of the people here and now, but a historical tradition (Rhees 1982: 103ff). Drawing on Wittgenstein’s own phraseology he states that “whatever gives us the impression that a practice must be age-old – this is what is important” (Rhees 1982: 103), and he goes on to applaud Frazer for having recognized the importance of the history of the ritual as a background for our own impression of it. Thus, Rhees takes “the general inclination of the people” to be derived from the majority of individuals who took part in or grew up with a certain ritual. From this angle he understands the suggested “individual invention” to mean that “[i]f a ritual, like that of human sacrifice, were something anybody could invent, at least he must have lived long among the people to whom he proposed it” (Rhees 1982: 103). Taking up the matter once more on the following page, he refers to Wittgenstein’s remark that “[a] person might himself have invented or made up all these ceremonies”, and he contends that “I do not think this means that any one of us could invent or make up all these ceremonies without having studied ceremonies which we did not invent” (Rhees 1982: 104). Attempting to hone in on Wittgenstein’s point, Rhees thus distinguishes between ‘the spirit of the ceremony’ and ‘a general inclination of the people’, and argues that the former is the “inner nature” or “medium” of various rituals, while the latter constitutes the “external actions” specifically carried out by “any one tribe or nation” (Rhees 1982: 107). Consequently, he must interpret “the character of these people themselves” (cf. PO: 145) as “the character of those who make up the community in which it [the ritual] is performed as well as those who take part in it” (Rhees 1982: 106). But something is amiss in this picture. First of all, by way of concluding his first sets of remarks, Wittgenstein finds it wrongheaded of Frazer to suggest a historical hypothesis doing the trick of providing the sufficient connecting links between various rituals (PO: 131), and although Wittgenstein certainly refers to the thought of a historical derivation, he precisely dissociates this thought from the facts of any real derivation (cf. PO: 149). The ‘character of the people’, which represents a source of something deep and sinister, has nothing to do with those who actually invented the ritual, as Rhees suggests, but instead with the inner nature of the ceremony, thus rendering Rhees’ distinction between inclination



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and spirit obsolete. What is reflected in our impression of a man’s “tone of voice and facial expression”, making us aware that “this man can on occasion be terrible” (PO: 147), is clearly related to “the kind of people who take part in it [the ritual], their behavior at other times, that is, their character” (PO:  145). What Wittgenstein draws to our attention is not that exactly those people invented a certain ritual, but that they expressed something in the ritual as well as in their occasional, normal behavior which prompts us to make connections. That we can find a person potentially frightening, although he may just have uttered a strict, but rather harmless ʻno!’, has to do with his expression. We see this expression just as we ‘see’ something similar in ourselves. Yet, the object of this impression is not some “inner experience” in any private sense, which would be completely at odds with his refutation of the possibility of a private language (cf. PI §§243–315). Rather, the object, that is, the character, is the expression. We are social beings and we express ourselves socially. Let me give an example. The phrase is sometimes heard that “the eyes are the mirror of the soul”. In what sense may this point to something significant? When someone reacts emotionally as, for instance, through fear, her pupils will normally dilate. What we see, however, is not the dilation of pupils; what we see is fear. We do not even see the dilation of pupils as a sign of fear; what we see is fear as an expression that we are socially (as well as biologically) accustomed to recognize. Likewise, we are able to recognize the ritual, or at least something in it, as an expression. Or to put it differently, what we have learned by way of experience is the ability to connect various expressions, in this case some facial expression, some inner experience, some way of behavior and some ceremonial acts, associated with the character of those involved. Yet, in this respect, ‘character’ does not point to characteristics of individual persons but rather to a social aspect of appearance. For the same reason, the construction of links should not be taken in the sense of some random construction as opposed to what is already the case, for this very opposition is what Wittgenstein is at pains to abandon. The reconstruction of something which is already the case sui generis works only for the reconstruction of physical causes, not in relation to a form of life in which the realization of connections is part of the social world that always already constitutes the condition of possibility. In this respect, Heidegger’s Dasein, including the Mit-einander-sein, and Wittgenstein’s form of life seem not so far apart. Consequently, I find that there are quite compelling grounds to believe that Wittgenstein would not think of the general propensity in people as the sum of those individuals who happen to contribute to the invention of a ritual, as Rhees claims. Instead, we can locate the basis for the ritual in our own propensity, not in the sense of some individual capacity but in the form of a more general social expression of a form of life. Contrary to Rhees, I claim that Wittgenstein does

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not refer to the general inclination of the people as something distinct from the spirit of the festival. The general inclination of the people does not identify the majority of attitudes, but the social nature of the inclination. Approaching my conclusion, I should like to emphasize that what we recognize in ourselves is not, strictly speaking, reflected in this “social inclination”, but is rather something of the same inner nature, and that can only be brought out, so to speak, through a perspicuous representation. Thus, this inner nature is what we may happen to see in external acts, as fear is what we see in the dilation of pupils. The impression, ancient rituals make on us, is ‘deeply’ embedded in their expression, not as something hidden but as something which strikes us through connecting links.

7 Conclusion Thus, it should be clear by now that the impression Wittgenstein speaks of in the second set of remarks on Frazer is not to be taken as the response of an imaginative mind, but as the reflection of a social inclination. However, this inclination is hardly reducible to a distinction between rationality and irrationality (or pseudo-scientific thought), as one might think along the lines of an explanatory hypothesis like Frazer’s. Rather, the unsettling character of magical practice appears from a perspicuous representation of various elements of immediate recognition. These elements uncannily show the depth of our nature on the surface of social expressions. Whether we speak of people looking at the sun with awe and thankfulness, of people doing harm to their enemies, or of the amusing games they create and partake in, we speak of activities which originate neither in instinctive proclivities nor in rational views. In the first set of remarks, Wittgenstein actually held that “[o]ne could almost say that man is a ceremonial animal” (PO: 129). “That is, no doubt, partly wrong and partly nonsensical, but there is also something right about it” (PO: 129). Ceremonial acts (carried out by humans) are not merely instinctual “animal activities”. We are aware of what we do; we do it intentionally, we are even inclined to ask questions about it. Still, there would be no general penchant to engage in any ritual – or other similar – practice, if it were merely the result of a rational wish to sustain something meaningful. We act blindly and yet consciously. This is, at least partly, what is ‘sinister’ and ‘unsettling’ about our behavior. Recognizing fear, not merely in dilated pupils, but also in a random gesture or in ritual practice, belongs to a deeply familiar form of life. Much of what we do seems to spring from fearful attitudes rather than a hypothetically valid inference of precise dangers. We may even know that and still continue, perhaps half-consciously, to suspect secret relations between theoretically



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unrelated state of affairs. But Clack is on the wrong track, in this respect, when he suggests “instinctual behaviour” as the better alternative to instrumentalist and expressivist positions (Clack 1999: 94f.; 162). No theoretical counter-solution satisfies the point of Wittgenstein’s philosophical issues with Frazer. More importantly, Clack’s interpretation exactly misses the importance of our awareness, our predisposition to reflect on what we do, that is, on the deep-seated nature of what we do. Any kind of explanatory reference is as liable to lose this depth as Frazer’s evolutionary hypothesis was by exempting itself from the workings of the ‘savage’ mind. In this respect, we may even say that what is alienated by scientific objectification is what is made familiar by philosophical investigation. And if a scientific practice consists in launching and testing hypotheses, it requires another kind of investigation to understand the ‘foundations’ of this practice.38 While speaking primarily of magical beliefs and rituals, Wittgenstein’s RFGB aims to elucidate something that is fundamental to the very human form of life. What the reading of Frazer brought to his attention were not only differences, but also similarities between the foundations of different practices among human beings. The phrases that were originally planned to precede the remarks by way of introduction spoke of metaphysics “as a kind of magic”. And even though Wittgenstein came to disavow these introductory lines, they indicate that the RFGB were conceived in a larger perspective involving mythology, language, and metaphysics.39 As forms of life, they are interconnected, recognizable in the inner nature of what we do. This does not entail, however, that some practice has finally become explainable by another, in which case ‘the other’ would here be the philosophical investigation. What the philosophical investigation does is perform a self-reflection within an on-going practice, capable only of pointing at the things we do, the philosophical practice included. Wittgenstein’s aim is not to question science, metaphysics, or anything else, by taking a privileged point of view from the outside. Devoting our attention to the foundation of this philosophical mirror, as it were, I think we are aiming at the heart of Wittgenstein’s philosophical uneasiness. One of the consequences, namely that philosophy has to leave everything as it is, points to something crucial: that we tend to seek reasons where there is

38 Compare PI, II: xiv, §372 (p. 243), where this point pertains to investigating the foundations of psychology and mathematics. 39 In the abandoned introduction to the remarks on Frazer, he compared his own previous attempt (in the TLP) to “keep something higher spellbound” by talking “about the ‘world’ (and not about this tree or table)”, PO: 117. In the Big Typescript he similarly supplies his remarks on Frazer with a point on a magical gesture (in Leviticus 16.21) being similar to the errors of philosophy, that is, metaphysics, PO: 197.

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none; and then the impression hits us, as it were. The question is not ‘how are things constituted the way they are?’ but rather ‘why are we seeing things the way we do, taking certain attitudes towards them?’, ‘what is it that makes us uneasy when they impress us with a certain depth?’ The description is not a cure, but a mirror, a reflection of the question. In this sense, Wittgenstein’s remarks are as open-ended as they are confronting our self-understanding. This is what his philosophical questioning does. To reflect undisturbed on a certain situation – a practice or a use of words – is, at the same time, to reflect on the situation of the reflection itself, and this reflection, therefore, not only raises the question but holds the answer as well. It should be clear that the kind of conclusion I have reached here is no guide to scientific investigations, and it should not be mistaken for a suspicion over and against the fruitfulness and necessity of formulating theoretical hypotheses as such. Rather, it is a philosophical appeal to be aware of what we are doing when we are lured into taking a distanced look upon some human activity. Thus Wittgenstein’s RFGB doesn’t so much reflect an interest in understanding strange customs better than Frazer, but rather shows an agitated attempt to understand better what ‘the principles of association’ reveal, that is, what is going on in our own understanding, not least in the very incentive to understand, in which case the philosophical investigation becomes its own disquieting mirror, resolving the apples of Sodom into dust the moment it touches them.

References Cioffi, Frank (1998) Wittgenstein on Freud and Frazer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clack, Brian C. (1999) Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Conant, James (2002) “On Going the Bloody Hard Way in Philosophy”, in: John H. Whittaker (ed.): The Possibilities of Sense, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Eldridge, Richard (1987) “Hypotheses, Critical Claims, and Perspicuous Representations: Wittgenstein’s ‘Remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough’”, in: Philosophical Investigations 10/3, 226–245. Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. (1976 [1937]) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Frazer, James George (1913) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion (third edition, unabridged), London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1927) Man, God and Immortality, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1930) The Growth of Plato’s Ideal Theory, London: Russell & Russel. Frazer, James George (1936) Aftermath: A Supplement to the Golden Bough, London: Macmillan. Frazer, James George (1993) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion (ed. 1922), Hertfordshire: Wordsworth.



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Freud, Sigmund (1956–74) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey, London: Hogarth Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1973) Erkenntnis und Interesse. Mit einem neuen Nachwort, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Henrich, Dieter (2011) Werke im Werden. Über die Genesis philosophischer Einsichten, Munich: C. H. Beck. Hutto, Daniel (2007) “Getting clear about perspicuous representations: Wittgenstein, Baker and Fodor”, in: D. Moyal-Sharrock (ed.): Perspicuous Representations: Essays on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 299–322. Janik, Allan/Toulmin, Stephen (1973) Wittgenstein’s Vienna, New York: Simon & Schuster. Klagge, James C. (2003) “The Puzzle of Goethe’s Influence on Wittgenstein”, in: Fritz Breithaupt, Richard Raatzsch and Bettina Kremberg (eds.): Goethe and Wittgenstein: Seeing the World’s Unity in its Variety, Wittgenstein-Studien 5, Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 19–26. MacCormack, Sabine (1984) “Magic and The Human Mind: A Reconsideration of Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Arethusa 17/2, 151–176. Müller, Max (1873) Introduction to the Science of Religion, London: Longmans, Green & Co. Puhl, Klaus (2006) “Only connect … Perspicuous Representation and the Logic of Nachträglichkeit”, in: Grazer Philosophische Studien – Internationale Zeitschrift für Analytische Philosophie 71 (Deepening our Understanding of Wittgenstein), 23–38. Rhees, Rush (1979), “Afterword”, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough / Bemerkungen über Frazer’s Golden Bough, ed. Rush Rhees, Herefordshire: Brynmill Press, 21–34. Rhees, Rush (1982) “Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual”, in: Brian McGuiness (ed.): Wittgenstein and His Times, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 68–107. Ricoeur, Paul (1970) Freud & Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage, New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Rorty, Richard (1991) Essays on Heidegger and others, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schulte, Joachim (2003) “Goethe and Wittgenstein on Morphology”, in: Fritz Breithaupt, Richard Raatzsch and Bettina Kremberg (eds.): Goethe and Wittgenstein: Seeing the World’s Unity in its Variety, Wittgenstein-Studien 5, Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 55–72. Taylor, Charles (1985) Philosophical Papers Vol. 1: Human Agency and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waismann, Friedrich (1979) Ludwig Wittgenstien and the Vienna Circle. Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann, ed. Brain McGuiness, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979. Winch, Peter (1999 [1964]) “Understanding a Primitive Society”, in: Nancy K. Frankenberry and Hans H. Penner (eds.): Language, Truth, and Religious Belief, Atlanta, GA: Scholar Press, 342–377. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1970) Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology & Religious Belief, ed. C. Barrett, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations, The German text, with an English translation by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte, 4th edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2011) Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch, ed. Josef Rothhaupt, Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.

Ramifications of the Remarks

Anders Klostergaard Petersen

Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer An Emotional Philosophical Puppet Abstract: The basic tenet of my essay is that Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough (RFGB) exhibit a Frazerian strawman which Wittgenstein is using for his own philosophical purpose. I call for a reassessment of Frazer which not only places him in the historical context of his thinking but also attempts to instantiate a dialogue between him and Wittgenstein in light of recent developments in the study of ritual. Through a close reading of the RFGB, I argue that Wittgenstein’s criticism of Frazer is skewed by the fact that too much emphasis is placed on the emotional side of ritual to the detriment of the ambition to explain it. In contrast, Frazer is lauded for his acknowledgement of this aspect, but is criticised for underestimating the emotional dimension of ritual. However, if Frazer’s argument is transposed into contemporary cognitive science of religion, it may be used to criticise Wittgenstein and, correspondingly, Wittgenstein’s RFGB may serve as a rejoinder to a one-sided Frazerian view of ritual (and religion) as provisional and flawed science. Das Zeremonielle (heiße oder kalte) im Gegensatz zum Zufälligen (lauen) charakterisiert die Pietät. Ja, Frazers Erklärungen wären überhaupt keine Erklärungen, wenn sie nicht letzten Endes an eine Neigung in uns selbst appellierten. (Wittgenstein, PO: 126)

Since their days (the Brothers Grimm) systematic enquiries carried on among the less educated classes, and especially among the peasantry, of Europe have revealed the astonishing, nay, alarming truth that a mass, if not the majority, of people in every civilised country is still living in a state of intellectual savagery, that, in fact, the smooth surface of cultured society is sapped and mined by superstition. Only those whose studies have led them to investigate the subject are aware of the depth to which the ground beneath our feet is thus, as it were, honeycombed by unseen forces. We appear to be standing on a volcano which may at any moment break out in smoke and fire to spread ruin and devastation among the gardens and palaces of ancient culture wrought so laboriously by the hands of many generations. After looking on the ruined Greek temples of Paestum and contrasting them with the squalor and savagery of the Italian peasantry, Renan said, “I trembled for civilization, seeing it so limited, built on so weak a foundation, resting on so few individuals even in the country where it is dominant.” (Frazer, The Scope of Social Anthropology, 1908, 15f.)

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1 A  Necrologic Dialogue between Frazer, Wittgenstein, and the Current Study of Ritual It may be slightly presumptuous, tantamount to futile audacity, to take as indicated by the title of my essay a Frazerian view over and against the allegedly more subtle philosophical position of Wittgenstein as expressed in his Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough (RFGB). After all, the attempts to ridicule and denigrate Frazer’s work and thinking have for over a century been the rule within the fields of anthropology, philosophy, psychology and religion, so why spend time on defending a hopelessly obsolete scholarly view? Already at the time when Wittgenstein began to formulate the notes on Frazer, Frazer’s work had become an object of scholarly scorn although it continued to enjoy a wide popular readership.1 The tendency of a critical stance towards Frazer is even more vocal with respect to that work of Frazer with which Wittgenstein was solely concerned, i.e. The Golden Bough (GB). Robert Ackerman, one of the most perceptive readers in recent years of Frazer, espouses the view that: Neither the work nor the reputation of Frazer has weathered well. Despite a notable (and I believe misguided) attempt in 1959 on the part of Theodor H. Gaster to revise The Golden Bough by drastically abridging it and bringing some of its “facts” up to date, one may safely say that the work today is regarded as a monument of industry by the few more magnanimous historians of anthropology and as a colossal waste of time and effort by the many less charitable. This disdain is largely the result of the great theoretical reorientation that has taken place in anthropology since Frazer. For the Golden Bough is both the culmination and the swansong of old-style evolutionary anthropology (Ackerman 1991: 46).2

Based on these assessments, I surmise that it calls for an explanation why I shall engage in a partial defence of Frazer. In general, I think that a principle of fairness and generosity should be applied to all scholarship and perhaps even more so to that of the past, since even the best thinkers of a bygone era cannot stand up to the course of time. It is a fairly easy task to take a scholar of the past and criticise him or her by the measures of the present; but, rather than elevating one’s own position at the expense of a significant scholarly predecessor, I find it

1 Cf. Wißmann 1997: 86. 2 A different view is found in Ackerman’s monograph on Frazer in which he contends that: “Today, his [Frazer] classical scholarship continues to be esteemed; otherwise, everything that is not The Golden Bough constitutes distinctly the lesser half of his achievement and could be dispensed with painlessly. Not so the Bough: as it perennially engaged him, so it contains that part of his anthropological work that retains some power of engaging us” (Ackerman 1987: 179).



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more fruitful to understand what made the Frazerian view so powerful in its own time. What was the intellectual climate like in which Frazer came to develop his view-points? Why did his work have such pervasive influence not only on subsequent generations of scholars but also on the general public?3 However, I am not only interested in Frazer and Wittgenstein’s discussion of him in the RFGB for historical reasons. In addition to the interpretative ambition of analysing Frazer’s thinking in terms of its cultural, intellectual and social context,4 I shall argue that we may, in fact, still learn from Frazer if we are prepared to read him in a more benevolent manner. Far from pursuing the weaknesses of his argument which is an easy task in light of the distance that separates us from Frazer in terms of time and intellectual milieu,5 I find it more productive to make his case as strong as possible.6 The more so, since I think that underlying that part of Frazer’s argument with which Wittgenstein is mostly concerned, i.e. magic and its alleged efficacy, is an acknowledgement of a pivotal aspect that pertains to any ritual and which subsequent generations of scholarship have come to neglect for lack of appropriate theoretical framework. Obviously, Wittgenstein’s enigmatic Kringel-Buch and the parallel parts of the Philosophical Occasions are rich on thought-provoking and condensed statements that call for much exegesis and discussion. In this essay, however, I shall have to constrain myself to that aspect which to me appears most central in the RFGB, that is, the question of ritual efficacy. Rather than ignoring

3 Fortunately, Robert Ackerman has provided scholarship with an excellent monograph on Frazer and his intellectual sources of influence. In a later book on the Cambridge Ritualists, Ackerman has a fine chapter on Frazer and his intellectual legacy on subsequent groups of scholars. In addition, George Stocking’s book on the period After Tylor from 1995 has valuable information on Frazer. Also individual studies of Frazer exist such as Ivan Strenski (2006) and Hans Wißmann (1997), but none of them surpasses the work of Ackerman. Finally, there are special studies on the work of Frazer such as the notoriously famous and acrimonious criticism of The Golden Bough by Jonathan Z. Smith. As is evident from my section on situating Frazer in his historical context, I am much indebted to especially Ackerman. 4 By using the term ‘interpretation’ I pay heed to Eco’s distinction between interpretation and use of texts (1990: 57f.). The categories do not constitute categorically different approaches but should rather be seen as being located at different ends of a continuum. The differentiation is useful in order to underscore the ambition of a particular type of reading. 5 See, for instance, Evans-Pritchard (1981: 141–151). 6 Robert Segal in a review of Robert Ackerman’s monograph on Frazer praises Ackerman for avoiding the time-honoured caricatures of Frazer’s life and work: “On the one hand he (i.e. Ackerman,) observes that many of the convictions for which Frazer has long been damned – his egregious ethnocentrism and outright racism, his uncompromising rationalism, his staunch atheism – were conventional tenets of his time, so that to fault him for them is to court presentism” (Segal 1989: 625).

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this dimension and deriding Frazer for his take on it, I think there is good reason to revitalise it and see how it appears if it is placed in the context of Wittgenstein’s criticism and the current study of ritual. Needless to say, there are good reasons why we cannot remain within the framework of Frazer’s original thinking, but that does not preclude that we may use his ruminations as a point of departure for taking a fresh look at the issue with which both he and Wittgenstein were concerned, that is, magic and ritual efficacy in particular. Needless to say, the latter term pertains to my understanding of Wittgenstein and does not represent his own terminology. At this point it may, of course, be reasonable to demur that the kind of benevolent reading I am advocating with respect to Frazer should, by virtue of the same principle, also apply to the discussion of Wittgenstein’s RFGB. Indubitably, that is a fair and sensible objection. Nevertheless, I think that the RFGB exhibits a type of reading by which Wittgenstein also is making himself a victim of the bashing of Frazer to which I previously referred. In fact, there are points in the RFGB at which Wittgenstein may be accused of playing a too simple game against Frazer by making his argument come out considerably more unsophisticated in comparison with what Frazer actually contends. Therefore, I may be more generous to the Frazerian position at the expense of Wittgenstein’s argument. Three points should be taken into consideration in order to legitimise this procedure. First, if Wittgenstein was engaged already in partial derision of Frazer as, for instance, epitomised in his comparison in the RFGB between Frazer and his purported deficient capacity to imagine a past priest detached from a contemporary English parson (Kringel-Buch (KB) no. 127; PO: 124; cf. PO: 130), it is fair to give Frazer his due in terms of the argument. The more so since, as already indicated, there are points in the RFGB at which Wittgenstein is using Frazer merely as a cloak for promoting his own philosophical stance with regard to a particular view of metaphysics which he conceives of as untenable. In principle, he could have chosen other representatives as puppets for his discussion, but by the early 1930s Frazer had become an easy target (although Renan is also used as a strawman in the RFGB, Frazer is the primary target). Second, since I want to shed light on the debate between Wittgenstein and Frazer by also drawing on contemporary studies in the fields of the study of ritual and the cognitive science of religion there is a point in paying particular attention to the Frazerian argument. This is due to the fact that Frazer in contrast to Wittgenstein had a greater appreciation of the efficacious element pertaining to ritual. Obviously, it may be countered against my reading that it does not attempt to interpret the RFGB in the light of Wittgenstein’s oeuvre in general, and that it places too much emphasis on a text that presumably was not meant for publication. I acknowledge that; but in this essay I want to take the RFGB at face value for what Wittgenstein really



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says.7 Although much can and ought to be said about the peculiar nature of the RFGB, the RFGB are nevertheless decisive for an understanding of Wittgenstein’s account of religion (cf. Clack 1999b: 58).8 Yet, Brian Clack is entirely justified in his characteristic of the unsystematic view of religion promulgated in the later works of Wittgenstein, the RFGB included: “Those looking for a systematic treatment of religion in the later writings of Wittgenstein will be disappointed. What we have rather are what Iris Murdoch has fittingly called ʻexasperating hints’, a collection of observations and reminders about the character of religious belief and its role in the lives of the faithful” (Clack 1999b: 75). Third, the majority of contributors to this volume are experts on Wittgenstein and may, therefore, be less prone to acknowledge what is at stake in the quotes from Frazer that Wittgenstein discusses. Therefore, apart from the possible counterbalancing the penchant towards the Wittgensteinian view it may be advantageous for the future discussion of Wittgenstein’s RFGB to have an essay that pays particular heed to the Frazerian perspective and its potential in light of current studies of ritual. In addition to these remarks, there is another element that we need to take into consideration. The RFGB does not amount to a genuine analysis of Frazer in the sense of a close reading and discussion of his work. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein’s comments instantiate a form of debate with Frazer that may be helpful in the context of recent scholarly discussion of ritual. In fact, it is reasonable to argue that the discussion represented by RFGB is really a reflection of two signifi-

7 As Lars Albinus has pointed out to me, it may well be that my reading of the RFGB ultimately turns Wittgenstein too much into a representative of an expressivist or emotionalist stance towards religion. I acknowledge that there are other ways of reading the RFGB, especially if they are interpreted through the lens of Wittgenstein’s other works emerging during the same period, not least the CV. Nevertheless, there are several statements in the RFGB to undergird my reading, and I find it especially pertinent, when one focuses in particular on the remarks that are explicitly concerned with the criticism of Frazer. However, that Wittgenstein in the context of the RFGB may have overstated his case is perhaps evident from a statement found in the lecture notes from Moore. At the end of the fifth lecture, held on 5 May 1933, Wittgenstein according to Moore nuances his criticism of Frazer by adding that: “Frazer talks of Magic performed with an effigy, & says primitive people believe that by stabbing effigy they have hurt the model. I say: Only in some cases do they thus entertain a false scientific belief. It may be that it expresses your wish to hurt. Or it may be not even this: It may be that you have an impulse to do it, as when in anger you hit a table; which doesn’t mean that you believe you hurt it, nor need it be a survival from prehuman ancestors.” For a strong repudiation of Wittgenstein as an advocate of an emotionalist or expressivist view of religion, see Clack 1999a: 21–50, 129–134, and 1999b as well as Lars Albinus’ contribution to this volume. 8 In addition, it is also clear from a reading of the RFGB that some of Wittgenstein’s concerns in this work are similar to what he promulgates in the CV (see, for instance, CV: 32f., 53, 64, 85), see Clack 1999b: 56, who, however, is espousing a different reading of the RFGB than the one I am propounding.

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cantly different strands each of which has played a prevalent role and continues to exert considerable influence in the study of religion in general and the study of ritual in particular. On the one hand, there is the Frazerian intellectualist trajectory which attributes to ritual a propositional character in the sense that ritual action is imputed an element of instrumental efficacy, that is to say, ritual is conducted similar to so many other actions with the aim in mind to obtain particular goals that in one way or the other are conceived to influence particular states or elements, including persons, belonging to the world. On the other hand, there is the Wittgensteinian emotionalist or symbolically expressivist understanding which primarily conceives of ritual as, although meaningful action, not an accomplishment of ascribed instrumental effects. Ritual is first and foremost conceived to be representative of particular emotional states or to constitute actions through which emotions are acted out: Wenn ich über etwas wütend bin so schlage ich manchmal mit meinem Stock auf die Erde oder an einen Baum etc. Aber ich glaube doch nicht, daß die Erde schuld ist oder das Schlagen helfen kann. “Ich lasse meinen Zorn aus.” Und dieser Art sind alle Riten. Solche Handlungen kann man Instinkt-Handlungen nennen (KB no. 169; PO: 136).9

I shall present a reading of Wittgenstein’s RFGB in the light of my own work within the field of the study of ritual. Despite the fact that I have a long-standing proclivity towards the Frazerian position it will be evident that I find myself torn in a position located somewhere between the Frazerian view and Wittgenstein’s criticism of it. I think that there is more than a kernel of truth contained in both view-points, but, taken on their own, each of the over-all understandings reflected by their respective views is deficient. To formulate the argument in a nutshell, I argue that the comments of Wittgenstein not only underestimate but at points also misconceive the Frazerian position and especially the emphasis that Frazer ascribes to the instrumental aspect of ritual. By not only ridiculing but also neglecting to take this prevalent element in Frazer’s thinking about ritual seriously into consideration, Wittgenstein overlooks a crucial aspect of ritual.10 In addition to the efficacious aspect of ritual, which is ignored if not derided by

9 Cf. KB no. 115 (PO: 122): “In effigie verbrennen. Das Bild der Geliebten küssen. Das basiert natürlich nicht auf einem Glauben an eine bestimmte Wirkung auf die Gegenstände die die Bild darstellt. Es bezweckt eine Befriedigung & erreicht sie auch. Oder vielmehr, es bezweckt gar nichts, wir handeln eben so & fühlen uns danach befriedigt.” 10 This is also granted by Clack 1999b: 64: “So there is certainly a sense in which expressivism can be said to distort the character of some ritual action.” Clack, however, is also eager to point out that Wittgenstein’s expressivism is not of a straightforward nature, cf. ibid.



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Wittgenstein, I shall focus more specifically on the two principles highlighted by Frazer as essential for the creation of ritual efficacy, i.e. contiguity and similarity.11 At the same time, if one were to instantiate a necrologically Frazerian response to the Wittgensteinian position which is more or less what I shall do by clothing the Frazerian conception in a more novel semiotic and cognitive thinking about ritual, one has simultaneously to acknowledge Frazer’s downplaying of the emotional aspects of ritual among the ritual actors and problematise his view of ritual and ultimately religion as erroneous and infantile science. In addition, it is important to highlight how Frazer by the evolutionary, mono-causal teleological framework in which he places ritual and magic, underestimates the importance of ritual and religious thinking in contemporary forms of Western society, also among academics. Or to put it in an even more blatant manner as Wittgenstein does and alluded to in the title of my essay: Welche Enge des seelischen Lebens bei Frazer! Daher: Welche Unmöglichkeit, ein anderes Leben zu begreifen, als das englische seiner Zeit! Frazer kann sich keinen Priester vorstellen, der nicht im Grunde ein englischer Parson unserer Zeit ist, mit seiner ganzen Dummheit und Flauheit (KB no. 127; PO: 124).

2 Putting Frazer in the Context of His Time It is not easy to get a firm grip on Frazer’s thinking, since he not only developed his views over the years but also in the individual works kept oscillating between different perspectives which are not entirely reconcilable with each other.12 Possibly, Frazer never acknowledged the tension between his different views on, for instance, myth, which reverberate even in the third edition of the GB; but this is difficult to ascertain, since we have very little from his own hand in which he discusses his work and general theory of evolution from a personal perspective.13

11 On this point I acknowledge a particular debt to and dependence on the work of my colleague and close friend Jesper Sørensen. Had it not been for his scholarship in the field of cognitive studies on magic and ritual efficacy, I would not have been in a position to take up these questions in the manner I do. I am grateful to Sørensen for having added the cognitive components to my own previous work on ritual that comes out of a predominantly semiotic-sociological tradition dependent on the scholarly trajectory from Durkheim, Geertz, and Rappaport. 12 See the lucid description in Ackerman 1987: 231–233, 253–255. 13 The only work of Frazer that really comes close to a more principal discussion of his views is the lecture he gave at the occasion of his appointment to an honorary professorship in social anthropology on 14 May 1908. The lecture was published the same year by Macmillan and Co. For

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Frazer, for instance, never deliberates the fact that his famous distinction between magic and religion and his tripartite evolutionary scheme on magic, religion, and science do not come into the GB before the second edition. It is found nowhere in the first edition (cf. Ackerman 1987: 109). Similarly, the degree of antireligious polemics increases notably between the different editions. Whereas Frazer presumably for diplomatic reasons had left Christianity out of the account in the first edition, it comes to feature largely in the subsequent two editions;14 but this is nowhere commented upon. Additionally, he appears to have been very loyal to people, who at different stages of his life exerted influence on his thinking. Despite the fact that Frazer developed a view on the relationship between myth and ritual which was notably different from that of his close friend and colleague Robertson Smith, he continued to emphasise the congruence in terms of thinking between the two right up to Smith’s premature death from tuberculosis and exhaustive work. Far from acknowledging how far, in fact, he had moved from the position of Robertson Smith on the relationship between myth and ritual, Frazer embraced Smith in a manner so that the deceased was used as a mouthpiece of Frazer. This may sound rather negatively as a form of necrological manipulation, but in the case of Frazer it is more likely that his veneration for and deep courtship with Robertson Smith prevented him from appreciating the differences in view.15 Finally, Frazer seems to have had a general dislike for polemics and confrontation (Ackerman 1987: 90). Although born in a Christian home of parents belonging to the Free Church of Scotland, Frazer, from a relatively early point of life, broke with Christianity in what appears to have been an undramatic way. It seems neither to have been the result of a crisis nor to have constituted any radical break. Frazer’s enormous volume of especially classical reading as well as the pervasive influence that evolutionism of especially a Spencerian bend exerted on him simply made him immune to what he considered the folly and irrationality of religion.16 Unlike the later Cambridge Ritualists, however, Frazer was critical towards religion in general and not particularly antagonistic against Christianity as such. Therefore,

the events surrounding the lecture, see Ackerman 1987: 207–215. Even in this lecture, however, Frazer does not even come close to pointing out tensions, verging on inconsistencies, which exist between the different views he espouses. 14 Ackerman 1987: 167. 15 Ackerman recounts the exchange between Frazer and Marett on Robertson Smith’s understanding of the priority of ritual and that of myth in which Frazer was very reluctant to acknowledge the differences between his own and Robertson Smith’s view (1987: 224–231). 16 For differences with respect to different types of evolutionism of the mid-19th-century, see Blute 2010: 5–11, and Jablonka and Lamb 2005: 10–24.



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I find it hard to understand how Ivan Strenski can relate Frazer to the vitalist movement, since he did not share the enthusiasm of the Cambridge Ritualists (Jane Harrison in particular) for the archaic types of religion and particularly how their rituals held to epitomise the ‘raw powers of nature’.17 Needless to say, this objection does not exclude the fact that Frazer’s thinking took place within an over-all romantic frame of reference that had a particular bent towards the religion of the people (Volksreligion), the past, the individual mind, and similarly placed important emphasis on imagistic aspects over and against the doctrinarian ones of the elite; but that does not make Frazer a vitalist. His evolutionism prevented him from following the path taken by the later Cambridge Ritualists. Be that as it may, it is not surprising that Auguste Comte already in Frazer’s youth and from a slightly later period Edward Tylor, not least promoted by Frazer’s reading of Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), became lasting sources of influence on him.18 In fact, if one were to single out the most important sources of influence on Frazer from the contemporaneous scholarship, it would be Tylor, Robertson Smith, John McLennan, and Wilhelm Mannhardt (Ackerman 1987: 82). The decisive ideas that permeate all of Frazer’s work and which Wittgenstein also took up in his discussion in the RFGB are all found in either embryonic or full form among these thinkers. Therefore, following Robert Ackerman I shall locate Frazer’s thinking within the context of these four intellectuals. From Tylor Frazer took the idea that ultimately myths are representative of man’s primitive attempts to engage in ratiocination. In this conception we find the background for Frazer’s rather deprecatory evolutionary view of myth as a rudimentary and unsuccessful effort of early mankind of engaging in scientific explanation. Tylor also exerted considerable influence on Frazer with respect to his prioritising myth over and against ritual, which in the case of Tylor is likely to have arisen from his Quaker and therefore anti-Catholic and anti-ritualistic prejudices. Something similar may be claimed with regard to Frazer’s background in the Free Church of Scotland and account for his particularly strong biases against the Roman Catholic Church. In the vein of time-honoured Protestant tradition, ritual was understood as an external and empty display of underlying myths. This element is important for Wittgenstein’s disagreement with Frazer. As we shall see

17 Strenski 2006: 145–147. 18 At a later period from 1898 in connection with the publication of Spencer and Gillen’s The Native Tribes of Central Australia, Frazer and Tylor became involved in a dispute which they never seemed to settle (cf. Ackerman 1987: 158–161, 180f.). The controversy, however, never changed the lasting influence of Tylor on Frazer. For Tylor’s pervasive influence on Frazer despite the controversy, see Stocking 1995: 145.

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in his criticism of Frazer, there is a notable difference between Frazer’s proclivity to think of myth and thereby religion in terms of psychological categories (being first and foremost a matter of understanding) and likewise Wittgenstein’s propensity to conceive of religion in the context of sociality (ritual and religion being first and foremost a matter of what is understood as reality among a given group of people and determined by their cultural and social conventions dictated by language). The point at which Tylor in particular came to have lasting influence on Frazer was with respect to the evolutionary frame as well as the comparative endeavour. Four points should be highlighted in that regard. First, through Tylor, Frazer, ‘the classicist’, came to understand how incipient anthropology and folklore studies with their focus on the religion of the people could contribute to the study of ‘classical’ religion by shedding light on aspects previously grossly ignored by scholarship. The light from Acropolis had to be seen in the wider context of ‘savage’, ‘primitive’, and ‘pagan’ ordeals. Secondly, the comparative enterprise, which opened for the collocation of classical religion and current customs and festivals of folk religion, paved the way for an evolutionary perspective that enabled scholarship to ascertain how the past lingered on in contemporary forms of religion of the people. With reference to George Stocking, Strenski rightly emphasises how this perspective led Frazer to situate Christianity not as superior to other religions (the path ,taken by the contemporary History of Religions School of Göttingen and prior to that Hegel – see Petersen 2013 and 2016), but rather as being enmeshed in the ‘primitivism’ of all religion: “These comparisons did not show how the pagan religions were really Christian underneath the surface, but rather how ‘pagan,’ ‘primitive,’ and ‘savage’ Christianity in truth actually was” (Strenski 2006: 154). Thirdly, the juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary forms of folk religion allowed Frazer as it did for Tylor to fill out the gaps of ancient religion. The close examination of present rituals and festivals could, by virtue of analogy − founded on the understanding that they were fossils of past religions – be used to reconstruct what was missing in the ancient sources. Fourthly, from Tylor Frazer received the idea that mythology was an instrument of simple ratiocination which had to be seen as a precursor to the later far more advanced form of scientific rationalisation. But despite the difference in terms of intellectual development the two nevertheless shared common features such as the over-all ambition and desire to account for the composition of the world and the position of human beings in it. Contrary to Tylor and Frazer, John McLennan placed important emphasis on what in hindsight may be designated the sociological aspects of religion by his focus on matters related to the organisation of groups and social institutions rather than on the thinking of the individual (Ackerman 1987: 80). His main



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interest was directed towards the relation between groups and social institutions organising the structure of the individual groups. Despite this difference in emphasis, McLennan’s two studies, on Primitive Marriage from 1875, and Studies in Ancient History from 1876, had a lasting impact on Frazer in their examination of totemism and exogamy. Had it not been for McLennan, who exerted decisive influence on Frazer’s most important source of inspiration, i.e. Robertson Smith, it is unlikely that Frazer would have come to author the lengthy work from 1910, Exogamy and Marriage in four volumes. Frazer’s interest in the institution of totemism was also unthinkable were it not for the influence from McLennan. A third source of inspiration was the German folklorist Wilhelm Mannhardt whose influence Frazer acknowledges in the first edition of the GB: “I have made great use of the works of the late W. Mannhardt, without which, indeed, my book could scarcely have been written” (Frazer 1890, I: xi). There are three points on which Frazer is particularly indebted to Mannhardt. We have already noticed one of them in connection with Tylor’s influence. Similar to Tylor, but far more extensive in scope and depth, Mannhardt was accentuating the value of applying ethnographic and folkloristic studies to the examination of defunct religions. Mannhardt was particularly qualified for this, since he had been conducting fieldwork among farmers, Although his understanding may appear rather dubious today, his firm conviction was that the study of contemporary agricultural rituals provided scholarship with direct access to the cultures of antiquity, since the rituals of peasantry had remained untouched by the general cultural and social development. In conjunction with this conception, Frazer also owed to Mannhardt his notion of the corn demon or the vegetation spirit, i.e. the idea that the divine is thought to inhabit all that grows, and that magical rituals were construed with the aim in mind to placate the corn spirit. Needless to say, this concept is closely intertwined with the previously mentioned point that the study of contemporary peasant rituals may provide scholarship with indirect access to more or less defunct traditions. It also contributed to strengthening Frazer’s understanding that the peasant culture of his day, its embeddedness in Christianity notwithstanding, was an unacknowledged “continuity of an earlier pre-Christian faith, one that coexisted with and underlay the official cult of classical antiquity, one that was rooted in and grew out of the cycle of birth and death in the agricultural year and was thus potentially as old as the Neolithic age” (Ackerman 1987: 81f.). In the Liverpool lecture from 1908 Frazer makes a distinction within social anthropology. That branch of the field which should concern itself with the study of the most primitive forms of culture, Frazer designates “the study of savagery”. Another branch, however, should devote itself to the study “of such relics of these customs and beliefs [i.e. ‘primitive ones’ – AKP] as have survived in

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the thought and institutions of more cultured peoples” (Frazer 1908: 11). In this manner, Frazer is able to retain both elements of his interest within a common frame of perspective. The third point that had a lasting influence on Frazer’s thinking was the emphasis Mannhardt placed on the law of similarity. The underlying idea is that similarities in terms of custom between people in different societies and at different periods may be taken to indicate parallels in terms of thinking. Robert Ackerman rightly underlines how this point correlates with Frazer’s Tylorian influence: “This suits perfectly with the assumption of uniformity of mental functioning and is wholly consonant with Frazer’s penchant for psychological explanations” (Ackerman 1987: 82). This conception has as we shall see an enormous impact on Frazer’s concept of magic, which, of course, is a key point in Wittgenstein’s RFGB. The view enabled Frazer to make the argument that underlying all types of ritual and magic are two basic forms of thinking at play, either that of contagious magic or a form based on similarity. It is also this point which in conjunction with what Frazer had learned from Tylor ultimately bequeathed the GB an infinite reservoir of empirical material. Since magical thinking was at play in antiquity, in the entire course of history, and in the peasant cultures of Frazer’s own time, there was nothing to restrain the pertinence of the material to be included, because it all contributed to documenting the same type of thinking at play. The last figure to be mentioned was, in terms of social relationship, the most important source of inspiration for Frazer, i.e. Robertson Smith, the veneration of whom Frazer retained throughout his life. It is also conspicuous, as Ackerman vividly documents, that the differences in thinking that existed between the two and which during the last part of Smith’s life and even more so subsequent to his death grew increasingly were never really acknowledged by Frazer – at least not in public or to colleagues (cf. Ackerman 1987: 85–91, 224–231). A great part of what became Frazer’s intellectual legacy is owed to Smith. Initially, he opened the door for Frazer’s acquaintance with incipient, scientific anthropology.19 He was as Ackerman points out “the first person in Britain to apply the comparative evolutionary anthropological approach to the study of an entire family of religions” (1987: 50).20 Similarly, Smith eventually became editorially responsible for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and commissioned Frazer to write the entries on ‘Totem’ and ‘Taboo’, which really paved his way into the field of early anthropology.

19 For one of the best presentations of early social anthropology, see Kuper 1988. 20 Ackerman even speaks about this change in direction of Frazer’s scholarship as a “conversion to anthropology” (Ackerman 1987: 62).



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During his years of study at the universities of Bonn and Göttingen, Smith had become acquainted with the best German exponents of critical biblical scholarship and he was an extremely proficient philologist possessing the erudition needed for truly comparative studies. Simultaneously, Smith was one of the first exponents to make use of contemporary studies of Semitic Bedouin cultures, which he had also conducted himself in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, in order to shed light on the early patriarchal narratives of Genesis. In his herostratically famous book, The Religion of the Semites from 1889, which comprised the first of three series of lectures held in Aberdeen from 1888 to 1891,21 Smith endorsed five points that in different ways – positively as well as negatively − would have a lasting influence on Frazer’s thinking. The first concerns Smith’s accentuation of the group at the cost of the individual, which would come to constitute a persistent theme in Frazer’s thinking. Smith undoubtedly paved the way for much of the British tradition within social anthropology and from a later stage what eventually became an independent sociological tradition by placing great emphasis on the group over and against the individual (cf. Robertson Smith 1923: 1f.). The second point pertains to the evolutionary argument that nothing emerges ab ovo, that even the so-called positive religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) came into being by being founded on the religious forms of their predecessors in terms of the history of religion (Robertson Smith 1923: 2f.). The third point was the emphasis Smith placed on the religion of the masses in contrast to that of the elite and the complementary argument that the religion of the people did not really differ from that of the surrounding cultures (Robertson Smith 1923:  4f.). The fourth point, closely related to the two previous ones, concerns Smith’s use of contemporary Bedouin cultures to cast light on elements in the Hebrew Bible: a method extensively used by Frazer in his continuous vacillation between ancient evidence and customs, ideas, and rituals of peasant cultures of his own day in order to detect a common conceptual frame of reference. The fifth point is related to the third one, since Smith was adamant in his belief that ritual predates mythology, theology, creed, and dogma:

21 According to Beidelman nothing has been preserved of these two series of lectures (1974: 25f.). The revised edition of The Religion of the Semites from 1894 includes the results of Smith’s reading of further literature published subsequent to the first edition and the inclusion of additional source material only. The second edition, however, came out a few months after Smith’s death in 1894. Things, however, have changed since the publication of Beidelman’s book. In 1995 John Day was capable of publishing the remaining two cycles of lectures based on transcriptions of the handwritten manuscripts of Robertson Smith. Fortunately, they are now available.

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So far as myths consist of explanations of ritual, their value is altogether secondary, and it may be affirmed with confidence that in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual, and not the ritual from the myth; for the ritual was fixed and the myth was variable, the ritual was obligatory and faiths in the myth was at the discretion of the worshipper (Robertson Smith 1923: 18; cf. 16–20).

Over the years, Frazer and Smith increasingly came to diverge in their view on this point; but the tenet had a continuous influence on Frazer as something that he initially was greatly inspired by, and at a later stage as something that he had to present his view against, with the additional qualifying remark that Frazer hardly ever explicitly acknowledged the difference. More scholars should be adduced in order to provide a complete picture of the intellectual milieu in which Frazer’s thinking was forged. However, the four thinkers presented here constituted the most important sources of inspiration on Frazer’s thinking. Our brief look at them has given us the background for Frazer’s work. In contrast to Robertson Smith, Frazer sided with Tylor in placing emphasis on the individual at the cost of the group. In that sense he was a true heir of English romanticism. Additionally, he owed to Tylor the general understanding of myth as an embryonic form of ratiocination that eventually would evolve into a scientific mode of thinking. From Mannhardt, Frazer learned how the study of contemporary agricultural rituals could be used to cast light on enigmatic or obscure data in ancient texts. The emphasis Mannhardt placed on magical rituals as being construed with the aim in mind to placate the vegetation spirit would also have a lasting influence on Frazer’s thinking about magic. All of this comes into the GB which superficially is an attempt to explain the killing of the priest of the sacred grove of Nemi. In the introduction to the seventh part on Balder the Beautiful, however, comprising five volumes in the third edition of the GB, Frazer made it clear that his real ambition was to account for the evolution of human thinking from its most primitive form current civilisation.22 Although this does

22 Frazer 1911–15, Vol. 10, vi. “To drop metaphor, while nominally investigating a particular problem of ancient mythology, I have really been discussing questions of more general interest which concern the gradual evolution of human thought from savagery to civilization. The enquiry is beset with difficulties of many kinds, for the record of man’s mental development is even more imperfect than the record of his physical development, and it is harder to read, not only by reason of the incomparably more subtle and complex nature of the subject, but because the reader’s eyes are apt to be dimmed by thick mists of passion and prejudice, which cloud in a far less degree the fields of comparative anatomy and geology. My contribution to the history of the human mind consists of little more than a rough and purely provisional classification of facts gathered almost entirely from printed sources. If there is one general conclusion which seems to emerge from the mass of particulars, I venture to think that it is the essential similarity in the



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not come out as a clearly expressed principle of structure in the GB, there is no doubt that it is a leading thought of the author. It is not as lucidly expressed in the abridged version of the GB, which was the text that Wittgenstein had at his disposal; but it is beyond doubt that Wittgenstein also understood this tenet to be a primary thought of Frazer. It is the understanding of magic and ritual efficacy and its alignment with an evolutionary argument that makes magic come out as an embryonic and flawed form of science in the GB. This constitutes the primary object of criticism in Wittgenstein’s RFGB. We are now in a position to turn to the GB with a particular focus on the elements criticised by Wittgenstein.

3 F razer’s Golden Bough: A Riverrun from Swerve of Shore In the wake of Frazer, Hans Kippenberg adequately points out the palimpsest nature of Frazer’s grande oeuvre: “Wenn man The Golden Bough mit Frazer selber einen Palimpsest nennt − ein Manuskript, in dem nacheinander verschiedene Texte niedergeschrieben worden sind −, tut man nicht viel mehr, als die Ungereimheiten des Werkes auf eine Metapher zu bringen” (Kippenberg 1997: 133). It may well be that this metaphor does not capture the essence of the work, but it does highlight its somewhat problematical nature. In his Yale dissertation, Jonathan Z. Smith goes even further by characterising Frazer’s work as a bad joke along the lines of Sterne’s Tristam Shandy: I am tempted to describe Frazer as the Tristam Shandy of the scholarly world, save that I am not convinced that he ever achieved the control of his ill-assorted material that Sterne did. The complex vision of the relationship between order and disorder which is the heart of Sterne, is lacking in Frazer. What is resolved as wit, comedy and “jest”; what becomes the tragedy of an unending quest in Kafka, or the absurd bravery of Sisyphus, unending task in Camus’ version of the tale − in Frazer becomes simply a bad joke. On the one hand Frazer delights in the multiplicity, in the manifold oddities of human behavior; on the other, the ultra-rational Victorian apocalypticism struggles absurdly (or perhaps, ineffectively) to arrange and control his data. Frazer’s result is neither comedy, tragedy or bravery. It is simply a poor joke, a snicker, a cracked sermon, a pathetic surrender (Smith 1969: 15).

working of the less developed human mind among all races, which corresponds to the essential similarity in their bodily frame revealed by comparative anatomy.” Compare this retrospective reconstruction of the whole point of the GB with my introductory text from Frazer’s The Scope of Social Anthropology, in which he talks about humankind standing at the top of a volcano.

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Smith’s characteristic of the perpetual riverrun or the ceaseless accretion of new material of the work notwithstanding, I think, as indicated by my introduction, that we may gain far more from reading Frazer if we engage in an amicable perusal of the GB. In fact, there are elements in the opus that may advantageously be utilised with respect to the subsequent scholarly tradition. Yes, the GB is, indeed, an unmanageable compilation of an unending number of sources; but that does not detract from its virtues and the insights for which Frazer still ought to be applauded. This is exactly the point at which Wittgenstein’s wrestle with Frazer becomes mesmerising, since he attacks Frazer on those points on which Frazer in my view is most perceptive and promising for future research, that is, his conception of magic and ritual efficacy. In order not to be misunderstood, let me emphasise once again that I also acknowledge the problematical nature of Frazer’s magnum opus, but I find it more promising to scrutinise those aspects on which I think he still has something to say. This is particularly pertinent with regard to that aspect at which Wittgenstein directs his main criticism, namely the question of ritual efficacy and the question of a possible evolutionary continuity in terms of thinking between representatives of tribal cultures/religions and those belonging to the modern Western world.

4 F rom Frazer’s Understanding of Magic to a Contemporary Theoretical Re-phrasing of Frazer In the GB, Frazer makes a basic distinction between what he designates the two basic principles of magic. The first one is called the law of similarity, whereas the second one is termed the law of contact or contagion (Frazer 1949: 11). The former is characterised by virtue of the fact that “like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause”. The latter is described as obtaining its goal by means of the fact that “things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical distance has been severed” (Frazer 1949: 11). Complementary with these two principles, Frazer distinguishes between charms based on the law of similarity and those founded on the law of contiguity. The former are called homeopathic or imitative magic, whereas the latter are termed contagious magic (Frazer 1949: 11). A corollary distinction is found with respect to the status imputed by the users of magic to the role of magic:



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In short, magic is a spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct; it is false science as well as an abortive art. Regarded as a system of natural Law, that is, as a statement of the rules which determine the sequences of events throughout the world, it may be called Theoretical Magic; regarded as a set of precepts which human beings observe in order to compass their ends, it may be called Practical Magic (Frazer 1949: 11).

Although magic is understood as an embryonic form of science, Frazer makes it palpably clear that to human beings of tribal cultures magic was always of a practical nature. It never appeared as science: “At the same time it is to be borne in mind that the primitive magician knows magic only on its practical side; he never analyses the mental processes on which his practice is based, never reflects on the abstract principles involved in his actions” (Frazer 1949: 11). At this point, I shall leave Frazer and the innumerous examples he provides throughout the GB of the two different types of magic. We may criticise him for his imposition of a triumphalist evolutionary scheme on magic which implies a tri-partition of human thinking into a continuum comprised of magic, religion, and science; but at the same time we should acknowledge that he does not conceive of magic and religion as irretrievable elements of a bygone era only. On the contrary, Frazer has a perspicacious awareness of the fact that magic and religion linger on as very much existing realities also in his own Victorian world, even though that they may or, perhaps rather, should not be found in his own circles. He is, of course, herostratically famous for his notion that magic constitutes the bastard sister of science, but if we leave these prejudices of a past epoch apart, Frazer still has something to teach us on magic and religion. At this point some readers are likely to object that it is preposterous to retain the concept of magic given its value-laden nature in previous forms of scholarship.23 Why maintain a concept that has had a predominantly social-relational nature, that is to say, that “my magic is your religion and vice-versa”? However, I do not think that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. It may well be that the concept has often had the character of a floating signifier or the nature of a social-relational term; but that does not preclude that we may retain it if it is properly defined, that is, from what in a given context appears as a particularly useful theoretical perspective with a lucid methodological underpinning (cf. Pyysiäinen 2004: 96). Similar to the criticism raised against the use of the concept of magic, during the past three decades there has been fervent criticism directed

23 The subsequent passages draw on an argument that I have also put forward in other contexts. See, for instance, Petersen 2013: 193–200, which I am to a great extent reusing in the following pages.

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against the scholarly use of the term religion, since religion per se does not exist (cf. Satlow 2006). This is, of course, correct, but the objection does not detract from the value of adhering to the concept both at the emic and the etic levels of analysis. In fact, we would have to discard numerous analytical terms on the premise that they cannot be retained unless the referent to which they are held to apply are found in the empirical world in a most robust fashion; but concepts such as magic and religion do not have the same empirical substantiation as do tables and chairs. Third-order concepts, however, such as, for instance, religion and magic were never developed in order to have any direct empirical relationship to the world. Ultimately, the argument for abandoning a particular concept may stem from the failure to differentiate between concept and phenomenon. Magic in my view is a term that it would be difficult to do without, since it has a strong substantiation in popular parlance and, therefore, if not redefined will continue to contaminate the scholarly terminology. The argument, however, may also be advanced in a more positive manner. If we have a particular term with a long, time-honoured history for designating matters pertaining to ritual efficacy, why give up that concept? Needless to say, this endeavour is only meaningful to the extent that we can provide the term with a lucid and useful definition and a complementary explanatory frame of reference that legitimises our approach in theoretical terms. In my view, Frazer was right in pointing to similarity and contiguity as the two basic principles on which magic work (cf. Sørensen 2007: 95f.). One may just take a quick look at some of the central healing narratives of the Synoptic Gospels. In the healing of the deaf and mute person in Mark 7:32–37, for instance, we see both principles at work. Jesus takes the person aside to a private place, puts his fingers into his ears, spits on his own fingers and touches the tongue of the person with an impediment in speech. Thereupon he looks to heaven, sighs and exclaims: “Ephphatha”, that is: “Be opened” (7:34). The injunction of his fingers into the ears of the deaf person and the subsequent touch upon his tongue with spit is an example of contagious magic, whereby superhuman power is transferred from one instance to another. The use of magical speaking “Ephphatha” (unknown to the intended audience of the text, wherefore it has to be translated from Aramaic into Greek) exemplifies imitative magic.24 The final healing takes place by the indexical exclamation of an enigmatic word, which by way of similarity causes the opening of the mute persons tongue. For anybody familiar with linguistics, the use of these two principles is not surprising, since we may easily translate Frazer’s two key terms into the concepts

24 For the use of gibberish and nonsense as part of ritual communication, see Sørensen 2008.



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of metaphoricity and metonymy. Ilkka Pyysiäinen argues that: “the concept of magic has emerged simply because there is a panhuman tendency to believe that some natural events are due to supernatural causes and because such beliefs are easy to criticise on the basis of sense experience”. By contrast, he surmises, religion “is based on the idea that various kinds of natural deeds and behaviours are relevant with regard to a supernatural reality” (Pyysiäinen 2004: 96). By this view, I think Pyysiäinen is still too influenced by traditional protestant theology which precludes him from acknowledging the ubiquity of magic in all religion, also in its elite forms. It may well be that magical aspects in elite forms of religiosity have been reduced over and against more patent forms of magic, but they are still there, and it would be a gross misunderstanding to underestimate them. Even in the most elite types of theology, there is an attribution of efficacy to the rituals conducted which presupposes the presence of superhuman agency in the contractual universe constituted by the ritual, its users and the objects obtained by means of the ritual signs.25 Alternatively, it would be very hard to imagine a form of religion void of the relationship between the human and superhuman world. Based on such a conception of magic, it should be obvious that we cannot do without magic as a third-order term, if we want to examine religious representations. If, as argued above, we can only retain magic as an analytical term on the premise that we are capable of substantiating it with a clear definition underpinned by a theoretically lucid perspective, we may be greatly helped by the pioneering work of Jesper Sørensen.26 In his book, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, Sørensen endorses the view that magic is intrinsic to all religion (defined as a third-order concept from the etic perspective of analysis), since we may take it to denote those techniques that enable superhuman agents or powers to exert their influence in the universe of contact of the ritual participants. He defines magic as “changing the state or essence of persons, objects, acts, and events through certain special and non-trivial kinds of actions with opaque causal mediation” (Sørensen 2007: 32). It is not the definition per se that is the crucial issue but rather its underlying theoretical substantiation.

25 The term universe of contact stems from the German linguist, Karl Bühler, who uses it to designate the space in which the sign users, the sign, and the reference to which the sign refers all are conceived to be physically present. 26 Sørensen’s book and articles (e.g. 2006 (with Pierre Liénard and Chelsea Feeny), 2007, 2008, and 2012) pertaining to the question of magic have been theoretically eye-opening to me and an indispensable source of inspiration.

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One important ramification of Sørensen’s argument is that we cannot reduce magic to the piercing of a doll, the utterance of magical spells, or the anointment of eyes with spit, while leaving out, for instance, the central rituals of Christianity such as baptism and the Eucharist. However one may think theologically in the respective Christian confessions about the means by which Christ as a superhuman agent is ritually present in, for instance, the Eucharist, all types of Christianity espouse the view that Christ is somehow changing the state or the essence of the ritual participants. Christian confessions obviously differ considerably with respect to the particular way they think about how the magical agency comes about, but this is a matter of different semiotic preferences rather than a question of magical vs. non-magical or symbolic interpretations.27 In addition, one may also note that cognitive psychological testing of participants in doctrinarian rituals such as baptism and the Eucharist testify to the fact that the ritual participants ascribe it magical efficacy in accordance with the principles delineated by Frazer.28 Some religions or religious confessions have a preference for language and hearing as the preferred or even exclusive semiotic channels of conveying the superhuman transference, while others promulgate iconic or indexical signs as the means by which the magical transference takes place. Despite these semiotic differences, however, they all embrace the view that somehow there is a change of state or essence of the persons involved in the ritual that is ultimately caused by a superhuman agent acting in the contractual universe of the religious adherents. Hence, magic in this understanding denotes those elements within religion that enable or facilitate the interactions between the trans-empiric and the empirical levels of reality, whether it pertains to persons, objects, acts, or events. In light of this conception, magic and religion do not constitute diametrically opposed

27 I wholeheartedly agree with Thomas, when with respect to the period following immediately after the Reformation he espouses the view that: “But even in the years after the Reformation it would be wrong to regard magic and religion as two opposed and incompatible systems of belief. There were magical elements surviving in religion, and there were religious facets to the practice of magic” (Thomas 1971: 271). In fact, I would go even further than Thomas by accentuating how magic is intrinsic to that part of religion which has to do with ritual practice. 28 Cf. Sørensen 2007: 178f: “Thus there is a direct negative correlation between the degree of symbolic meaning present in a ritual and representations of ritual efficacy, which entails that the less amount of symbolic meaning, the more efficacious the ritual can be. The basic correlation explains the tendency to import foreign and opaque symbolic material ascribed magical efficacy and to decrease the symbolic meaning associated with known materials by extreme iteration, strange, linguistic procedures, new (ritual) context and all the other means of de-symbolising described in previous chapters.”



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forms of thinking, nor are they conflated with each other. On the contrary, magic constitutes a sub-category within religion, albeit one that is intrinsic and indispensable to the phenomenon of religion.

5 A  pproaching the Dialogue with Wittgenstein: Taking Frazer’s Argument into the Context of Cognitive Science There is, of course, one crucial point in Frazer’s argument that he in my view is incapable of responding to, although his arguments begs for an answer. How does ritual efficacy come about? Granted that there are points at which magic overlaps with science, there are other points at which the two diverge considerably. In the cases in which the two intersect, how does magic work on human cognition? Was Frazer, after all, as indicated by Wittgenstein’s RFGB so stupid in posing questions with respect to the relationship between magic and science? Suffice it to say, that Frazer delineates the two basic principles underlying all magical acts, i.e. contagious and imitative magic; but he does not explain how the efficacy pertaining to the use of the two principles may come about. If in dialogue with Wittgenstein we are to retain these aspects of Frazer’s understanding, we should be able to take a view on this crucial point as well. Once again I turn to Sørensen,29 who points to the importance of causality for understanding what takes place in ritualisation – Frazer would have had no problem in acknowledging this as the key issue in coming to terms with the enigmatic question of magic. Sørensen argues for the necessity to highlight the relationship between the intentionality of the ritual participants and the act in which they are involved. It is patently clear that the relationship between intentionality and the ritual acts has been detached in the sense that the individual sequences of any ritual, the overall aim of the action, and its expected results have been disconnected from each other. For instance, there is no direct causal

29 For slightly different conceptions of magic from the perspective of cognitive science, see Pyysiäinen (2004: 90–112), who argues in favour of an understanding that rather than seeing magic as a sub-category within religion conceives of it as an independent, yet complementary system to religion; likewise Czachesz 2011, who advocates an understanding according to which magic is based on subconscious learning which generates superstitious behaviour, and in addition on a subconscious selective process that favours miracle stories which in turn reinforce such behaviour.

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relationship between saying “Sesame, sesame, open the door” and obtaining a particular result of that action in contrast to putting a key into the door and, thereby, opening it. Needless to say, the same holds true with respect to my previous example from the Gospel of Mark of the Ephphatha and the healing of the deaf and mute person. In the case of inserting a key into a keyhole, there is a direct causal result between the individual sequences of the action: 1) approaching the door; 2) taking the key out of one’s pocket; 3) elevating one’s hand towards the key hole; 4) inserting the key into the hole; 5) turning the key; 6) gripping the door handle; 7) turning the handle down; 8) opening the door. There is a direct causal result between the individual parts of the action sequence. This is markedly different from what takes place in ritual in which there is no direct connection. A central feature of ritual is that the intentions of the ritual participants are directed towards the entire action sequence (for example obtaining magical power through the transfer of the essence), while the individual parts of the sequence to a large extent are intentionally underdetermined. For instance, there is no direct causal relationship between: 1) inserting one’s fingers into the ears of another person; 2) spitting on one’s finger; 3) touching the tongue of another person; 4) looking towards heaven; 5) sighing; 6) and exclaiming Ephphatha. It is notable that intuitive expectations about causal relations are eclipsed at the expense of another form of causal relationship between the actions in the ritually blended space, the pre-ritual situation and the situation effectuated by the ritual action. Elements from the symbolic system of a particular culture are de-symbolised by means of the specific ritual actions and, thereby, they acquire meaning with respect to more basic, pre-cultural cognitive operations such as the transfer of essence. The different elements do not lose their symbolic meaning, but the symbolic meaning is overdetermined by a more fundamental form of communication. To exemplify the argument, Sørensen points to taking an oath by imposing one’s hand on the Bible rather than on the telephone book. In this manner, causal expectations about the relationship between the situation prior to the ritual, the ritual acts constituting the entire ritual sequence, and the situation accomplished by the ritual are weakened in favour of symbolically weaker basic cognitive representations built on iconic and indexical relationships. The contrast to common expectations about causality and intentionality enables the ritual action to be imputed with efficacy. The absence of normal notions of causality and the decoupling of intentionality may in particular situations trigger representations of the ritual actors to interpret the ritual action in terms of other intentionalities at play (For a rather different explanation, see Boyer 2001: 255). In this manner, the use of a reference to an indexical form of communication supports the exchanges that take place at the symbolic level.



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This argument is based on three pivotal points of recent cognitive studies. The first one has to do with the propensity of human beings to ascribe agency to an environment in which it is not necessarily warranted, the so-called hyper-active agency detection device, i.e., the HADD (cf. Barrett 2004, Boyer 2001, Guthrie 1993). Human beings are evolutionarily prone to search for meaning in order to protect themselves from potential dangers or to improve their situation by, for instance, realising that possible prey may be in the vicinity, the killing of which may prolong their existence. When no apparent meaning can be ascribed to semiotic noise, human beings are likely to search for other channels of meaning and intentionalities. The second point is closely aligned with my previous emphasis on the fact that a constitutive element of ritualisation is the disconnection between the ritual actors’ own intentions and the causal relationships instantiated by the ritual action consisting of several individual sequences. Probably this detachment compels the ritual actors to be particularly primed to search for the results of the ritual action in terms of intentional agency, i.e., a superhuman agency over which they have no control. Third, the lack of strong causal relationships between the individual sequences of the ritual action and the expected results of the over-all ritual act is a prerequisite for the stimulus to search cognitively for other forms of agency and intentionality. Needless to say, the three points are mutually enforcing in the sense that they highlight elements which in a reciprocal manner contribute to enhance representations of magical phenomena at play in a very straight-forward manner. In addition to these considerations, we should acknowledge a likely point of criticism. It may reasonably be objected to this understanding that it is all very fine and to a certain extent it makes sense, but it presupposes that magic works and that there is actually an element of efficacy at play. Yet, it may be counter-argued that magic in most cases do not work, that is, that the aspired outcome of the ritual act is unlikely to come about in situations, where magic is aimed to obtain a very direct, empirically and physically testable result. This, of course, is true; but far from contradicting the previous ruminations it may, in fact, strengthen them. A crucial point emphasised by Sørensen is the fact that the failure of magic is often ascribed an affirmative nature (2007: 160–165). This may sound superficially self-contradictory, but there is a method in the madness. If ritual practitioners were always capable of attaining the hoped for results of the ritual act, in the long run it would be impossible to ascribe it the influence of superhuman powers. It is the de-coupling of human intentionality pertaining to the ritual action that allows it to be attributed the action of other powers at play. In this manner, the frequent failure of magic, in fact, is a prerequisite for ascribing to magical acts the influence of superhuman agents. Furthermore, in magic the lack of success is often met by the invention of a new explanation. Frequent interpretations are that the magic involved was too

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weak in the confrontation with a powerful opponent or that the use of magic was simply inappropriate with respect to the particular situation: “In case of ritual failure, the classification of an event as an example of the ‘preconditional’ first event-frame, EF1, can be questioned. This entails that representations of efficacy of the ritual performed need not be doubted (e.g. “the ritual is efficient against witchcraft, but this is not a case of witchcraft”). Instead the ritual is represented as performed on the wrong premises, that is, as addressing the wrong and not the real cause (that can be undefined)” (Sørensen 2007: 162). As Sørensen is also keen to point out, the selection of alternative explanatory event-frames is not particular to magic, ritual and religion. On the contrary, this is a general feature of human life: “Thus, if my car will not start, there are several possible explanations leading to different reasons” (Sørensen 2007: 163). In light of the insights discussed in this section, we are not only in a position to provide a clear-cut definition of magic based on a lucid theoretical frame but we have also made considerable advances in explaining the tendency of human beings to attribute efficacy to ritual acts.30 Therefore, we are now in a position to respond to my three initial questions in conjunction with Frazer. How does ritual efficacy come about? How does magic work on the cognition of humans if we acknowledge that there are points at which it overlaps with science in terms of instrumental effects and other points at which it diverges considerably? How was it that Frazer could raise questions with respect to the relationship between magic and science? This is exactly the point at which we may learn substantially from cognitive science; but before reassessing these issues we shall return to Frazer in light of Wittgenstein’s criticism.

6 W  ittgenstein’s Criticism of Frazer and His Understanding of Ritual and Magic As already indicated I think Wittgenstein is primarily using Frazer as a straw man for promoting his own philosophical agenda. Wittgenstein’s reading of Frazer is far from benevolent and it does not attempt to interpret Frazer in terms of his own

30 In the 2007 book Sørensen provides his theory of magic with a typology of different forms of magic characterised by different underlying event-frames and explanatory schemes. Thus, there is a conspicuous difference between the existence of ritualised actions aimed to create specific event-states, which are dubbed prospective magic, and those focused on reacting against undesired event-states, which are designated retrospective forms of magic.



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historical context. Frazer is used in a manner similar to what the Germans call a Papkammerad, that is, a soldier made of millboard and placed at the end of a shooting range used for exercises to improve one’s own shooting skills. That said, however, Wittgenstein’s RFGB certainly also bear evidence to the fact that there are serious problems pertaining to Frazer’s argument and that there are elements in ritual behaviour which Frazer is not able to encapsulate by his theory of magic. So let us at long last move on to Wittgenstein’s criticism of Frazer before returning to Frazer one last time. We have already taken a look at KB no. 127, in which Wittgenstein scorns Frazer for not being capable of imagining “a priest who is not basically a present-day English parson with the same stupidity and feebleness”. The derision is repeated at several places among which no. 140 is quite conspicuous: “Frazer is viel mehr savage als die meisten seiner savages denn diese werden nicht so weit vom Verständnis einer geistigen Angelegenheit entfernt sein wie ein Engländer des 20ten Jarhhunderts. Seine Erklärungen der primitiven Gebräuche sind viel roher als der Sinn dieser Gebräuche selbst” (cf. PO: 130). Wittgenstein situates Frazer in a position where he is in for it. There is no pardon, no clemency. But if we leave the polemics aside and turn to the actual dispute in terms of understanding, we see how Wittgenstein uses Frazer as a representative of a view that is basically contradictory to his own. In the KB Wittgenstein puts his finger on the weak spot of Frazer’s argument by highlighting Frazer’s understanding of magic as a deficient and erroneous form of science: “Frazer’s Darstellung der magischen & religiösen Anschauungen der Menschen ist unbefriedigend: sie läßt diese Anschauungen als Irrtümer erscheinen” (KB no. 100; cf. PO: 118). The problems pertaining to such a view are made palpably clear by Wittgenstein’s subsequent remark. He underscores how Frazer’s argument implies not only that Augustine was in error, when he called upon God on every page of the Confessiones, but basically that every religious person from the Buddhist holy man and all succeeding religious exponents must have been endorsing an erroneous view by virtue of the fact that they were promulgating a theory (KB no. 101; PO: 118).31 It is Frazer’s conflation of magic with science within an evolutionary frame of reference that according to Wittgenstein gives rise to the misunderstanding of magic and partly religion as a deficient form of science.

31 Strictly speaking, the juxtaposition of magic with religion is not a fair rendition of Frazer’s argument, since Frazer, as we have seen, is very conscious about making a clear division between the two.

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At this point, I concur with Wittgenstein, but I think he takes his argument too far by adding that: “Schon die Idee, den Gebrauch – etwa die Tötung des Priesterkönigs – erklären zu wollen scheint mir verfehlt.” Wittgenstein’s strong repudiation of acknowledging explanatory aspects pertaining to the ritual performance prevents him from recognising those dimensions with respect to which Frazer’s ideas really have a bearing. This becomes even more evident in the subsequent statements: “Alles, was Frazer tut, ist, sie Menschen, die so ähnlich denken wie er, plausibel zu machen. Es ist sehr merkwürdig daß alle diese Gebräuche endlich sozusagen als Dummheiten dargestellt werden. Nie wird es aber plausibel, daß die Menschen aus purer Dummheit all das tun” (KB no. 101). Wittgenstein is, of course, right to emphasise that Frazer’s terminology connoting stupidity, naiveté, and absurdity on the part of the ritual practitioners is flawed, since it really cannot account for the continued use of these elements. The same is poignantly stated in KB no. 103 (cf. PO: 120): Frazer sagt, es sei schwer den Irrtum in der Magie zu entdecken – und darum halte sie sich so lange – weil z.B. eine Beschwörung die Regen herbeiführen soll sich früher oder später gewiss als wirksam erweist erscheint. {*} Aber dann ist es eben merkwürdig warum dann daß die Menschen nicht früher darauf kommen, daß es ohnehin früher oder später regnet.

We have previously seen how the cognitive science perspective may help us to account for this aspect without assuming as Wittgenstein does that no explanatory aspect is involved in the thinking of the ritual practitioners. In fact, the neglect of the explanative element not only defies the representations of the ritual practitioners but also the reason for performing the ritual in the first place. Yet, the argument that no explanatory component pertains to the acts of the ritual participants runs as a thread through Wittgenstein’s RFGB (cf. KB no. 102, 104– 107, 112, 114f., 121f., 135, 168f., 221; cf. PO: 118–122, 136–140). Contrary to such an understanding, Wittgenstein places an over-whelming emphasis on the emotional aspects of the ritual and not least of the ritual practitioners. That is an element which is grossly underestimated in Frazer’s argument. When, for instance, Wittgenstein in the previously quoted passage emphatically claims that all rituals are Instinkt-Handlungen, and provides the example of his habit of hitting the ground with his cane he is keen to accentuate that no cognitive component is involved: “… aber ich glaube doch nicht daß die Erde schuld ist oder das Schlagen etwas helfen kann. ‘Ich lasse meinen Zorn aus’” (KB no. 169). In the same vein, he argues in the context of the examples of kissing the name of the beloved and piercing an effigy of one’s foe that these actions are representative of the performance of the wished for result (Die Darstellung seiner Erfüllung, KB no. 120, cf. PO: 124). Magic only exhibits a wish. This idea is particularly elabo-



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rated in a previous statement, in which Wittgenstein espouses the idea that magic is all a matter of achieving satisfaction: “In effigie verbrennen. Das Bild des Geliebten küssen. Das basiert natürlich nicht auf einem Glauben an eine bestimmte Wirkung auf die Gegenstände die die ‹den Gegenstand den das› Bild darstellt. Es bezweckt eine Befriedigung & erreicht sie auch. Oder vielmehr, es bezweckt gar nichts; wir handeln eben so & fühlen uns dann befriedigt” (KB no. 115; cf. PO: 122). Wittgenstein’s emphasis on the emotional aspect is founded on the view that ultimately Frazer conceives of magic and ritual efficacy in terms of a flawed, childish and embryonic form of science. However, as Wittgenstein rightly notes, Frazer’s representatives of ‘primitive thinking’ are fully capable of oscillating between different representations of reality: “Der selbe Wilde der anscheinend um seinen Feind zu töten, sein dessen Bild durchsticht, baut seine Hütte aus Holz wirklich & schnitzt seinen Pfeil kunstgerecht & nicht in effigie” (KB no. 117; cf. PO: 124). In other words and contrary to Frazer, Wittgenstein acknowledges what the French historian Paul Veyne has dubbed Balkanization, i.e., the ability to vacillate seemingly without problems between different realms of reality.32 Therefore, it is erroneous on Frazer’s part to ascribe to the ritual practitioner a flawed and embryonic form of science which he allegedly imputes to his ritual participation. But does that really invalidate all of Frazer’s thinking about magic as Wittgenstein surmises in his totaliter et aliter polemic against Frazer? What does Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer amount to if we locate it in the framework of our previous ruminations based on the contemporary study of ritual and cognitive science of religion? Let us turn one last time to the grove of Nemi and its orchestrator.

32 Veyne 1988: 56f: “For we line up our beliefs in accordance with our words, so that we end up no longer knowing what we truly think. When he was relying on popular belief in centaurs, Galen, for want of cynicism, must have been caught up in a whirl of noble and indulgent verbiage and no longer knew too well what he thought of it all. In such a moment are born these modalities of wavering belief, which is the mark of times of intellectual confusion. The Balkanization of the symbolic field is reflected in each mind. This confusion corresponds to a sectarian politics of alliance. Regarding myth, the Greeks lived for a thousand years in this state. The moment an individual wishes to convince and be recognized, he must respect different ideas, if they are forces, and must partake of them a little. Now we know that the learned respected popular ideas on myth and that they themselves were split between two principles: the rejection of the marvelous and the conviction that legends had a true basis. Hence their complicated state of mind.” Contrary to Veyne, I think this is a ubiquitous characteristic of human life which is constituted by a perpetual oscillation between different realms of reality each characterised by its particular representations of the world. Most often these different representations of reality are not confronted with each other but are simultaneously present in the same mind. It is only at particular occasion that these different realms of reality come into collision with each other despite the fact that they may be internally contradictory to each other.

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7 T  he Wittgenstein Frazer Debate Briefly Rehearsed from the Current Study of Religion As already indicated, I think Wittgenstein goes too far in his criticism of Frazer. In his understandable attempt to criticise Frazer for conflating ritual thinking and magical practice with embryonic and defective science, Wittgenstein grossly ignores the explanatory aspect at play in ritual. As we have seen from our brief introduction to contemporary studies of ritual, especially from the perspective of cognitive science of religion, Frazer, indeed, had a valid point. There is an explanatory and cognitive dimension involved in all ritual action. It cannot just be reduced to a matter of achieving emotional satisfaction. Rituals are performed in order to achieve the interaction of superhuman agency into one’s contactual universe. It may well be that the rituals do not achieve the desired effect, but that does not entail that the ritual practitioners reject them as a flawed form of either thinking or behaviour. In this regard, Wittgenstein was right to emphasise what Veyne dubbed Balkanization at all levels of human history. Far from repudiating ritual action, there is a panhuman tendency to explain away the ritual failure by arguing, for instance, that the ritual practitioners did not have the needed power and skill to perform the ritual or that the performance of the ritual was really a misunderstanding in the first place, since the situation did not call for a ritual response. Needless to say, there is also a great difference at this point depending on whether one focuses on doctrinarian or imagistic types of ritual, since the latter are more prone to call for direct assessment of the success of the ritual performance.33 A ritual such as infant baptism in the Christian church in which the child is said to have undergone an ordeal that has removed it from a sphere of sin and death and transferred it into a sphere of life and righteousness is less prone to being empirically testable than a ritual in which the ritual performance is directed towards the removal of a handicap like blindness. When all is said, however, we may note that Wittgenstein nevertheless severely underestimated the instrumental effects that ritual practitioners actually ascribe to their ritual performance. It is not only a matter of achieving emotional satisfaction as Wittgenstein points out, although that is certainly an important aspect of ritual performances. The ultimate cause for participating in a magical healing ritual, a ritual of initiation in the Isis cult (cf. Apuleius Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 11), or a modern performance of the Eucharist, however,

33 For the difference between doctrinarian and imagistic modes of religiosity, see Whitehouse 2000.



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is to obtain the effects towards which the ritual by virtue of the alleged contribution of superhuman power is aimed. At this particular point, Wittgenstein is too blatant in his criticism of Frazer by letting Frazer’s understanding of magic and ritual thinking as a flawed and incomplete presupposition for scientific ratiocination overshadow ritual’s cognitive aspects and especially the explanatory dimension attributed to ritual by the ritual practitioners. The example provided by Wittgenstein of himself hitting the ground or a tree with his cane is, I think, exhibiting a certain degree of blindness on his part. I grant him that there is a strong emotional aspect involved in the action and that the hitting may provide emotional satisfaction of a momentary anger; but I do not see how he can explain away the cognitive aspect. It is not only a matter of letting anger loose but also of engaging in an act of imitative and contagious magic by which hitting the ground or the tree with the cane is held to alleviate the unfairness imposed on oneself by the referent to which the tree or the ground in the particular situation refer. Simultaneously, the transferal of pain to the agent by virtue of hitting the ground or the tree presupposes that they are cognitively conceived of as victims of one’s actions. One may, of course, discuss to what extent this really constitutes a magical action, since it is not apparent that there is an attribution of superhuman cooperation in the action. Yet, one may easily think of a ritual example in which that element is adduced to Wittgenstein’s cane-hitting person such as in cases of ritualised symbolic violence. In fact, such actions constitute a whole sub-group of ritual actions that mirror the narrative processes of either repression or degression by which a ritual participant or group of participants are deprived of their current status. The king put in chains is an example or the ritualised whipping of a whole group of people is another example; but one may also think of ritualised situation in which the earth as an indexical representative of the source of fecundity is whipped or beaten for not providing the ritualised practitioners with the hoped for blessing of abundant food (cf. KB no. 168). When Wittgenstein endorses the view that ritual practitioners do not act on the basis of opinions (Meinungen; KB no. 168; cf. PO: 136; cf. PO: 120), he is probably right in the sense that no ritual practitioner would voice his or her ritual performance in this particular manner. However, he is wrong in asserting that this excludes the adherence to some more basic cognitive schemes that, in fact, presuppose the assumption of ritual efficacy. In that sense, Wittgenstein overplays his cards by ignoring this crucial aspect. The fact that ritual practitioners engage in rain rituals during the rainy season and not during the dry period of the year is not a convincing argument on Wittgenstein’s side. It simply underscores the aspect pertaining to the appropriateness in terms of time and space of conducting particular rituals in particular contexts. The performance of ritual is always determined by the situation (cf. my previous comments on success and failure of ritual).

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8 A Brief Conclusion Most contributors to this volume are experts on Wittgenstein and have a particular interest in the role of his RFGB for his overall philosophy. Far from pursuing that theme, I have attempted to stage a dialogue between Frazer and Wittgenstein that leans towards the Frazerian point of view. Contrary to the time-honoured numerous exercises of ridiculing and scorning Frazer, I have embarked on an amicable and generous reading of Frazer in which I have attempted to foreground his argument as strongly as possible. In order to do that, I have transposed Frazer into the context of current studies of ritual and especially that of the contemporary cognitive study of ritual. I have argued that it may, in fact, be very fruitful to instantiate a dialogue between the two. Although Wittgenstein engages in Frazer ‘bashing’ for the purpose of his own philosophical agenda, he nevertheless has some very precise points of criticism that any ritual study should take into account. Contrary to Frazer, who grossly underestimates the emotional aspects of ritual performance, Wittgenstein eloquently underlines the importance of this particular dimension. Yet, Wittgenstein goes too far in the emphasis he places on the emotional component to the detriment of the ambition to explain the ritual performance. Thereby, he comes to underestimate the cognitive aspects of ritual, which is, in fact, something that one can really learn about from Frazer. On the basis of the contemporary cognitive study of ritual, it is fairly easy to translate Frazer’s two basic principles of imitiative and contagious magic into categories that can be accounted for. In contrast to Frazer, who was not able to explain how ritual efficacy or magic comes about we are greatly helped not least by the work of Jesper Sørensen which may be included to cast light on that particular aspect. When that is taken into consideration, it becomes patently clear that Wittgenstein severely underrates or, in fact, neglects the cognitive and explanatory aspects pertaining to any ritual performance. In this essay, I have not focused on Frazer’s evolutionary argument which is also a prime target of Wittgenstein’s criticism. Frazer’s tripartite evolutionary scheme of magic, religion, and science may obviously be criticised for various reasons. But if we leave the triumphalist aspect of Frazer’s argument aside and concentrate on the actual argument it may not be as far-fetched as it initially appears. Wittgenstein in my view is right to criticise Frazer for conflating magic with science, that is, for not taking the element of Balkanization satisfactorily into account. That is unquestionable, but, once again, I believe Wittgenstein becomes hypnotised by his opposition to Frazer and his own underlying philosophical agenda, which blinds him to the acknowledgement of the cognitive aspects underlying magical actions. By using the term ‘cognitive aspects’, I am not alluding to a theoretically grounded assertion, but merely arguing that what



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Wittgenstein conceives of as spontaneous instinctual actions may, in fact, rely on underlying cognitive mechanisms as we have come to know of from cognitive science. When that is taken into consideration, it may not be as implausible as suggested by Wittgenstein’s criticism to make an evolutionary connection between magic and science. Suffice it to say, that I have not been capable of pursuing that argument in the context of the present essay; but I do think it fair to add that my argument may also potentially lead to a reassessment of Frazer’s evolutionary thinking. Ultimately, I have attempted to pave the way for an irenic use of Frazer and Wittgenstein that gives each thinker his due part and without falling prey to bashing either the one or the other. In fact, both the view of Wittgenstein with respect to the emphasis he places on ritual’s expressivist dimension and the understanding of Frazer with regard to the significance he attributes to ritual efficacy and its cognitive aspect are needed in order to obtain a comprehensive and theoretically appropriate grasp of ritual.

References Ackerman, Robert (1987) J. G. Frazer. His Life and Work, Cambridge. Ackerman, Robert (1991) The Myth and Ritual School. J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists, New York/London. Barrett, Justin (2004) Why Would Anyone Believe in God?, Walnut Creek, CA. Beidelman, Thomas O. (1974) W. Robertson Smith and the Sociological Study of Religion, Chicago/London. Blute, Marion (2010) Darwininan Sociocultural Evolution: Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and Social Theory, Cambridge. Boyer, Pascal (2001) Religion Explained, New York. Clack, Brian (1999a) Wittgenstein, Frazer, and Religion, London. Clack, Brian (1999b) An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religion, Edinburgh. Czachesz, Istvan (2011) “Explaining Magic. Earliest Christianity as a Test-Case”, in: Luther Martin and Jesper Sørensen (eds.): Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography, London, 141–165 Eco, Umberto (1990) The Limits of Interpretation, Bloomington/Indianapolis. Evans-Pritchard, Edward (1981) A History of Anthropological Thought, London/Boston. Frazer, James George (1890) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, First Edition, vols. I–II, London. Frazer, James George (1900) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, Second Edition, vols. I–III, London. Frazer, James George (1908) The Scope of Social Anthropology. A Lecture Delivered before the University of Liverpool, May 14th. 1908, London. Frazer, James George (1911–15) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, Third Edition, vols. I–XII, London.

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Frazer, James George (1949) The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Abridged Edition, London. Guthrie, Stewart (1993) Faces in the Clouds, Oxford. Jablonka, Eve/Lamb, Marion J. (2006) Evolution in Four Dimensions. Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life, Cambridge, MA/London. Kippenberg, Hans G. (1997) Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschaft und Moderne, Munich. Kuper, Adam (1988) The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion, London. Petersen, Anders Klostergaard (2013) “Paul and Magic: Complementary or Incongruent Entities? Scholarly Use of the Concept of Magic, its Definition, and Prevalence of Magic in Paul’s World”, in: Helen R. Jacobus, Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme, and Philippe Guillaume (eds.): Studies on Magic and Divination in the Biblical World, Piscataway, NJ, 181–210. Petersen, Anders Klostergaard (2016) “Franz Cumont and the History of Religions School”, in: Annelies Lannoy and Danny Praet (eds.): The Christian Mystery. Early Christianity and the Pagan Mystery Cults in the Historical Work of Franz Cumont (1868–1947) and in the History of Scholarship, Rome, [in press]. Pyysiäinen, Ilkka (2004) Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist’s Perspective, Walnut Creek, CA. Robertson Smith, William (1923) Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. First Series. The Fundamental Institutions, New Edition, London. Robertson Smith, William (1995) Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. Second and Third Series, edited with an Introduction and Appendix by John Day, JSOT SS 183, Sheffield. Satlow, Michael (2006) “Defining Judaism”, in: JAAR 74, 837–860. Segal, Robert A. (1989) “Review of J. G. Frazer: His Life and Work by Robert Ackerman”, in: JAAR 57, 625–627. Smith, Jonathan Z. (1969) The Glory, Jest and Riddle: James George Frazer and The Golden Bough, Yale University [facsimile made from the microfilm master copy of the original dissertation]. Sørensen, Jesper (2007) A Cognitive Theory of Magic, London. Sørensen, Jesper (2008) “Magic among the Trobrianders: Conceptual Mapping in Magical Rituals”, in: Cognitive Semiotics 3, 36–64. Sørensen, Jesper (2012) “Magic Re-considered: Towards a Scientifically Valid Concept of Magic”, in: Bernd Otto and Michael Stausberg (eds.): Defining Magic, Sheffield, 229–242. Sørensen, Jesper/Liénard, Pierre/Feeny, Chelsea (2006) “Agents and Instruments in Judgements of Ritual Efficacy”, in: Journal of Cognition and Culture 6/3–4, 463–482. Stocking, George W. Jr. (1996) After Tylor. British Social Anthropology 1888–1951, London. Strenski, Ivan (2006) Thinking about Religion. An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion, Malden, MA. Thomas, Keith (1971) Religion and the Decline of Magic, London. Veyne, Paul (1988) Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on Constructive Imagination, Chicago/London. Whitehouse, Harvey (2000) Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission, Walnut Creek, CA. Wißmann, Hans (1997) “James George Frazer”, in: Axel Michaels (ed.): Klassiker der Religionswissenschaft. Von Friedrich Schleiermacher bis Mircea Eliade, Munich, 77–89. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979): Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough / Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, ed. Rush Thees, Gringley-on-the-Hill [=Brynmill-Edition].



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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993) Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis and Cambridge. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998): Culture and Value. A Selection from the Posthumous Remains / Vermischte Bemerkungen. Eine Auswahl aus dem Nachlaß, Revised Edition, eds. George Henrik von Wright, Heikki Nyman, Alois Pichler, transl. Peter Winch, Oxford. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2011) Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch, ed. Josef G. F. Rothhaupt, Munich.

Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell

Wittgenstein’s Critique of Frazer and Realism/Anti-realism Concerning Religion Abstract: This article addresses the impact the reception of Wittgenstein’s works has had on philosophy of religion and the study of religion. Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer has inspired the current fundamental dichotomy between two views on religious belief: a cognitivist, realist interpretation and an expressivist, anti-realist interpretation. Wittgenstein’s account provides an interpretation of religious language that makes sense of existential and non-literal meaning of religious practices and cognitive content, and his account has become a stepping stone for a tradition in philosophy of religion that seeks to counter and replace realist accounts. In this article I show how instead of forming a dichotomy, the realist and the anti-realist descriptions of religious beliefs ought to be seen as two extremes on a continuum. I also point to ways in which realist accounts can accommodate the intuitions that helped shape Wittgenstein’s game-changing contribution. In this way Wittgenstein’s contribution is not a refutation of realism, but rather it offers an additional fruitful approach.

Introduction Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer has been an important influence in debates within philosophy of religion and the study of religion. In particular, the reception of the critique has inspired anti-realist contemporary interpretations of religion and what it is to be religious. However, in the following I will argue that the critique of Frazer and the anti-realist arguments are compatible with realism about a wide range of religious thoughts and practices. First, because this reading is more in line with Wittgenstein’s general philosophical outlook and writings. Second, because more sophisticated forms of realism than the one attributed to Frazer can meet the objections to realism raised by Wittgenstein. The discussion to follow has two parts. Part one is concerned with Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer, while part two is concerned with the challenges the critique poses for philosophy of religion and the empirical study of religion. Much (actual and potential) confusion about Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer is related to a common conflation of three different discussions involving realism

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and anti-realism concerning religion. To avoid such confusion, part one begins with disentangling these discussions. After this, I will present Wittgenstein’s critique of the kind of realism he finds in Frazer. I will focus on what I take to be Wittgenstein’s two main objections. First, that Frazer’s account fails to provide a reasonable account of the motivational power of religion. And, second, that the account leaves the impression that religious and magical thoughts and practices are best understood as a kind of naivety. I will then discuss the specific nature of Wittgenstein’s critique. I will argue, first, that Wittgenstein’s aim is to show that there is another, more plausible interpretation of primitive religion than Frazer’s, and, second, that his critique should not be seen as an attempt to describe the nature of religious beliefs and practices in general. The conclusions from the first part will then lead to suggestions in the second part of this contribution as to how Wittgenstein’s objections can be met by realist views more sophisticated than the one he ascribes to Frazer. I will propose that discussions of the phenomenology of cognitive content and kinds of cognitive attitudes can help provide a realist account of religious thoughts and practices that is not vulnerable to Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer. I will conclude this contribution by pointing to the consequences my conclusions can have for philosophy of religion and especially for methodological and theoretical concerns in the empirical study of religion.

Part 1: Wittgenstein’s Critique of Frazer’s Realism Realism and Anti-realism Realism is generally taken to be the position that something exists and has the properties it has independently of human thought, conceptualization and “our attempts to cognize it” (Alston 1995a: 38). So, for instance, realism concerning gold is the view that gold exists and has the properties is has independently of what people think of it. This means, among other things, that it would be possible for gold to exist and be the way it is even if we were universally ignorant or in error concerning gold and its properties (cf. e.g. Thomasson 2003: 582–583 on ignorance and error conditions of realism). From this definition of realism we can see that we can distinguish between two kinds of anti-realism, namely ‘existential’ and ‘creative’ anti-realism which



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deny respectively the existence and the independence condition of realism:1 Existential anti-realism denies the reality of a given subject matter. While a realist concerning unicorns maintains that unicorns exist, the existential anti-realist concerning unicorns maintains that they do not. In contrast to existential anti-realism, creative anti-realism accepts that the subject matter exits, but argues that it owes its existence and character to our thoughts and practices (described as our “noetic activity” in Plantinga 1982: 48–49 or “our attempts to cognize it – our theories or conceptual schemes” in Alston 1995b: 38). A good example of something that exists in this way would be Nobel prize recipients in literature. These exist, but only because we have formed the ideas and practices relating to literature, money, social recognition, ceremonies etc. Were it not for those, there would be no such thing as Nobel prize recipients in literature. These distinctions are important for the present discussion, but equally important is the recognition that various realism/anti-realism debates are at play concerning religion. For the sake of simplicity, let us call them ‘social kind realism’, ‘religious object realism’, and ‘discourse realism’. The first of these realism debates concerns whether religion as a social kind exists independently of our conceptualization or not (whether, for instance, people could be religious even if we did not have the concept of religion). Fortunately, this far-reaching discussion within the study of religion need not occupy us here (but see e.g. Schaffalitzky de Muckadell 2014, Schilbrack 2010, Smith 1978). The second kind of realism debate related to religion is ‘religious object realism’ which concerns whether one or more of the supernatural objects religious thoughts refer to exist independently of our thoughts, theories and conceptualization. For instance, a religious theistic realist will argue that God exists in this way, and a religious voodoo realist will argue that voodoo powers exist in this way. Similarly, an existential theistic anti-realist will argue that God does not exist (this view is of course usually referred to as atheism), and an creative theistic anti-realist will maintain that God does exist, but not the way that ordinary objects exist, because God cannot be understood independently of religious systems of thoughts and practices. Rather, the creative anti-realist concerning religion will argue that God’s existence depends on us. This discussion is very central to contemporary philosophy of religion (see e.g. Byrne 2003, Hick 1993, Plantinga 1982, and Phillips 1993 for examples of influential discussions).

1  The theoretical framework of these distinctions between realism and two kinds of anti-realism can be found in, e.g., Alston 1995a and Devitt 1991, but the terminology is borrowed from Plantinga 1982: 48–49.

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In contrast to religious object realism/anti-realism debates, debates on discourse realism/anti-realism are not concerned with whether religious terms refer to something which exists independently or not (i.e. whether, for instance, God exists and if so how). Instead, the focus of this debate is whether the people who engage in religious discourse presuppose that they refer to religious objects existing independently of conceptualization etc.2 A discourse realist will think that people do presuppose that they refer to, for instance, God (i.e. the discourse realist is a cognitivist), an existential discourse anti-realist will argue that people do not presuppose that they refer to, for instance, an existing God, and the creative discourse anti-realist will argue that people presuppose that they refer to God as construct brought into existence by our intellectual and practical activities. To put it another way: the debate about discourse realism/anti-realism can be seen as a debate about the tacit folk theory of religious language. And this is, I argue, the debate at the core of Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer and the reception of it has inspired further discussions within philosophy of religion (cf., e.g., Phillips 1966, Runzo 1993, and Trigg 1998 for examples). Accordingly, the realism/anti-realism debate we are concerned with here is the third kind, i.e. discourse realism, but it risks being conflated with the second debate, the religious object realism (for instance, it is not clear that this distinction is made in overviews offered in Philosophy Compass (McGraw 2008: 259–260) and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Taliaferro 2013: section 3)). The reason for this may be that it seems overwhelmingly likely that a discourse anti-realist will also be a religious object anti-realist (either existential or creative) – so that the reason the discourse is anti-realist is that object anti-realism is the correct view. However, discourse realism is equally compatible with religious object realism, existential object anti-realism, and creative object realism, because the way people think about religious objects is not necessarily the way these objects actually are. For instance, discourse realism combined with existential anti-realism concerning objects would mirror J. L. Mackie’s view of moral facts: People speak as if moral facts exist, while in fact they do not (cf. Mackie 1977). But these are separate debates, and, as we will see, it will be useful to keep them apart in the discussion of Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer.3

2  ‘Religious discourse realism’ is here similar to what Peter Byrne calls ‘theistic discourse realism’ (Byrne 2003: 5–6), only it also includes non-theist religion. Byrne further distinguishes between theistic realism and theological realism (the latter being the interpretation found in academic theology), see Byrne 2003: 1. ‘Religious object realism’ matches the metaphysical realism (concerning scientific) objects discussed in e.g. Devitt 1991: 13–22. 3  The realism/anti-realism debates concerning religion are often compared to realism/anti-realism debates concerning science (in e.g. Byrne 2003, McGraw 2008). Note, however, that there



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Wittgenstein’s Critique of Frazer A main theme in Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer concerns what he sees as a misrepresentation of primitive religion and magical practices.4 According to Wittgenstein, Frazer describes the thoughts and practices of primitive religion as misguided attempts at science and technology (PO: e.g. 125, 129, 137, 141). In this view, Wittgenstein finds two untenable misconceptions of language and practices involved in primitive religion: First, a discourse realism which makes the religious person appear implausibly stupid, and, second, a cognitivism which fails to make sense of the meanings and motivations related to religious thoughts and practices. Wittgenstein is very explicit that Frazer’s realism represents the religious person as unreasonably stupid. For instance, he writes that Frazer presents the ritual practices as “pieces of stupidity” despite that “it will never be plausible to say that mankind does all that out of stupidity” (PO: 119, cf. also e.g. 125, 137 and 141). The misconception rests, according to Wittgenstein, on the view that primitive religion is characterized by discourse realism: the religious people Frazer describes appear stupid because he implies that they presuppose that they refer to religious and magical objects and causality which exists independently of conceptualization etc. Wittgenstein writes: “Burning in effigy. Kissing the picture of one’s beloved. That is obviously not based on the belief that it will have some specific effect on the object which the picture represents” (PO: 123). People distinguish between ritual actions and other actions – they do not build huts in effigy (PO: 125) and they know that praying will not bring rain (PO: 137). The second part of Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer’s realism is that it fails to provide an adequate account of the meaning and motivational force of religious thoughts and practices and why practices appear unaffected by rational argument. This part is perhaps less explicit, but it surfaces in for instance his discus-

are some asymmetries here. First, unlike the in case of religion, it is hardly assumed that there is a close relation between discourse realism/anti-realism (or ‘folk theory of scientific objects’) and realism/anti-realism debates about such objects. Second, unlike moral or religious object realism/anti-realism, creative anti-realism concerning science is probably not conceivable in non-cognitivist (expressivist) variants, but will be limited to pragmatist or instrumentalist views. 4  This section offers a presentation of the two accounts of religion. I will set the question aside what Frazer really meant, and so by ‘Frazer account’ I will refer to the view Wittgenstein presents as Frazer’s. Moreover, unlike Frazer Wittgenstein does not appear to have clear distinctions between thoughts and practices related to primitive religion as opposed to those of magic. In order to simplify the discussion, I have adopted a similar strategy, but see Schaffalitzky de Muckadell 2009 on my views of definitions of religion and of magic.

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sion of the Beltane Festival. Here Wittgenstein argues that the rituals contain a ‘temperament’, a ‘mysterious character’ and meaning that cannot be captured in a historical or psychological explanation (PO: 149–151). Similarly, he writes that Frazer’s “explanations of primitive practices are much cruder than the meaning of these practices themselves” (PO: 131). He also brings forward the analogy of beating a tree with a walking stick in anger, and he argues that a better explanation (instead of referring to strange belief or historical explanations) will begin by tracing it to instincts and the intention of “venting my anger” (PO: 137–139) and, later on, that bringing such actions “into connection with our feelings and thoughts […] [is what] gives the account its depth” (PO: 143). Frazer’s misconception on this matter is to think that religious language is truth-apt. Wittgenstein argues that religious views are not in error because they are not theories which can be wrong the way scientific theories or opinions can (PO: 119–125). He writes, for instance, that neither Augustine nor “the Buddhist holy man […] whose religion gives expression to completely different views” was in error (PO: 119). And concerning magic, he writes: “An error rises only when magic is interpreted scientifically” (PO: 125). Instead, Wittgenstein maintains, magic expresses a wish (PO: 125), and the ritual act (of, e.g., kissing the picture of the beloved) “aims at nothing at all; we just behave this way and then we feel satisfied” (PO: 123). Similarly, according to Wittgenstein, one can give expression to a feeling by saying “I fear the wrath of the gods” whether or not one believes in gods (PO: 131), and this is precisely because religious language does not comprise true or false statements, but expresses feelings, wishes or deep felt thoughts. To sum up: Wittgenstein argues against the realism and cognitivism embedded in Frazer’s account by pointing to two things: First, if Frazer’s realism concerning discourse were correct, he would need to argue that religious people were more stupid than evidence will have it. Second, Frazer’s cognitivism concerning discourse cannot account for the meaning and motivations of rituals or how they can be independent of beliefs.

Wittgenstein’s Alternative to Frazer’s Account In what follows, I will present a reading of Wittgenstein’s alternative to Frazer’s account that is in line with the interpretations that have influenced philosophy of religion and the study of religion the most. It should be noted that this reading may be seen as an instance of what Brian C. Clack has termed “the habitual expressivist reading” (Clack 1999: 17) which he and others have since challenged. But since the present purpose is to discuss the impact of Wittgenstein’s work, it



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will have to suffice, and the discussion about a correct interpretation of RFGB can be set aside (but see, e.g., Clark 1999 for the reasons for expressivist readings of RFGB and discussion of them). Wittgenstein’s alternative (as I present it here) to Frazer’s account of religious discourse is anti-realist and non-cognitivist. He suggests that people do not presuppose that they refer to religious objects which exist independently of conceptualization, and that religious language is not concerned with descriptions of such independent objects, but rather expresses feelings etc. So, for instance, the person who sticks pins in a voodoo doll does not believe this will actually affect the person the doll represents. Instead, the action gets its meaning from the feelings associated with the relationship with that person. In this way Wittgenstein replaces discourse realism with creative discourse anti-realism and cognitivism with expressivism. Let us see how this strategy can be used to escape, first, the problem of implausible stupidity (i.e. that Frazer’s discourse realism makes religious people appear stupid), and, second, the objection to Frazer’s account of the meaning and motivation of rituals. The stupidity objection disappears because on the anti-realist view on discourse, people are not committed to obviously false beliefs about, for instance, the efficacy of praying for rain or stabbing pictures in order to kill – they have no intention to refer to independently existing religious objects or ‘magical’ causal relations. Their actions cannot be explained by linking them to (false) beliefs about the way the world is. They should, instead, be seen as non-cognitive expressions of feelings and wishes. Likewise, the objection concerning motivation is avoided by Wittgenstein’s account. Wittgenstein notes that behaviors associated with religious practices are not affected by recognizing an error (cf. PO: 121) and this fits with an expressivist account: as there is no cognitive content, there can be no such thing as recognizing an error. Instead of seeing religious motivation as related to cognitive content, it should be understood as non-cognitive expressions of feelings. Even if particular religious views and practices occur together, “the practice does not spring from the view, but they are both just there” (cf. PO: 119, cf. also 131, 137). The RFGB conclude with the example of how shaving the hair of a witch and wizards may appear to be founded in ‘stupid science’, but, Wittgenstein suggests (cf. PO: 155) the practice may also be explained by the wish to make these persons lose self-respect (because of emotional embarrassment). Arguably, if Wittgenstein’s expressivist account is correct, the shaving practice could in addition reflect people’s emotions towards those they consider witches and wizards.

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What Wittgenstein’s Critique Does and Does Not Show Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer’s account and the alternative he offers has been an important inspiration within philosophy of religion as well as within the study of religion. In philosophy of religion, the reception of Wittgenstein’s account has contributed to the development of a number of anti-realist and non-cognitivist approaches to religion (cf. Phillips 1970, Culpitt 1993, Rhees 1997, Tilghman 1993 and Malcolm 2003 for prominent examples). A main assumption which characterizes this approach is that people are often deceived by the realist ring to religious language when, in fact, religious language is better understood as linguistic components of practices and modes of being. The question is, however, to what extent Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer lends support to this view on religion. A key concern here is whether Wittgenstein’s alternative suggestion should be seen as a replacement of or a supplement to the Frazer account. Wittgenstein puts forward a religious anti-realist and expressivist alternative to “a present-day English parson with the same stupidity and dullness” (PO: 125), and so shows that creative anti-realism concerning discourse is possible. What he does not show, however, is that this is the only possible form of religious and magical thoughts and practices. On the contrary, that he mentions the English parson in the example seems to support the interpretation that there are realist (and naive) kinds of religious people in addition to the anti-realist people of primitive religions. His objection is that Frazer only knows the realist kind and that he thinks all others fit this description as well. Another reason for suggesting that Wittgenstein did not intend to deny the possibility of a realist approach is that that he does not appear to be engaged in an essentialist attempt to provide a demarcation of magic or religion. Two observations will support this interpretation. First, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is known for its anti-essentialist agenda, and it would run counter to his entire work to think that here he was offering a necessary condition for something being religion or magic. Arguably, it is reasonable to assume that he takes the anti-realist account as a more adequate description of primitive religion than Frazer’s realist account, but not that he sees the anti-realist character as a necessary trait of all forms of religion. Second, Wittgenstein is not concerned with distinguishing religion from non-religion. On the contrary, Wittgenstein often seizes the opportunity to emphasize that, in fact, thoughts and practices related to magic and religion are very much like other kinds of thoughts and practices (hitting a tree in anger, kissing a picture, distributing the scores of a deceased composer to his friends etc.). That this is a main aim, can be seen from the many examples he provides in Remarks to show that magic and religious thoughts and practices are part of



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a larger group of modes of being and ritualistic actions. For instance, he writes that both the ruler and the people know that the ruler has no special powers, but they still carry the notion of this power, and he adds that “That some hypocrisy thereby plays a role is true only insofar as it generally lies close at hand with most things people do” (PO: 139). A related important point involves the kind of realism and anti-realism concerned here. Wittgenstein is arguing for discourse anti-realism, not anti-realism concerning religious objects: he is engaged in a discussion about the adequate understanding of whether religious people presuppose that they refer to existing religious objects, not whether religious objects are, in fact, independent of human conceptualization. It may be tempting to see these two discussions as very closely related because if one is a creative anti-realist concerning religious objects it seems natural to also be a creative anti-realist concerning religious discourse. However, the opposite does not hold: The view that people in fact think of religious objects as something created by human conceptualizations, world views, and values, is entirely compatible with the existential anti-realist view that no religious objects exist or (only perhaps less psychologically likely) with the realist view that religious objects do exist independently. It is important to bear this distinction in mind because it will mean that Wittgenstein’s account cannot easily be employed to defend creative anti-realism concerning religious objects (such as the one championed in, e.g., Phillips 1970).

Part 2: Further Discussions within Philosophy of Religion and the Empirical Study of Religion Should Wittgenstein have argued that anti-realism is a defining feature of religious discourse? Arguably, Wittgenstein does not offer the expressivist and anti-realist account as a defining feature of religious discourse (let alone as an argument in the debate about realism or anti-realism concerning religious objects). Nevertheless, the question could be raised whether he should or could have aimed to argue that expressivism and anti-realism are necessary conditions for being religious discourse, or at least for non-stupid religious discourse. In order to show this, one would need to rule out that realist religious discourse can meet Wittgenstein’s two objections against the Frazer account. This second part of the contribution explores the possibility of answering these objections about stupidity and motivation within a realist framework. It outlines two possible ways to accommodate

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the objections, and the conclusions drawn will help untangle fundamental discussions within philosophy of religion. They will, however, also point to challenges within the empirical study of religion.

The Motivational Objection Let us look at the motivational objection first. This objection rests on the apparent difficulty in explaining motivation and the relationship between religious thoughts and actions (if thoughts are merely quasi-scientific beliefs as the Frazer account suggests). On the standard Humean account of motivation, scientific beliefs are not likely in themselves to motivate action without an accompanying wish, and changes in beliefs will mean changes in motivations and actions. This last part seems not to hold on the Frazer account if Wittgenstein’s observation is correct. Moreover, it seems more plausible that what Wittgenstein intends to point to is the radically different meanings and ‘feel’ of scientific and religious worldviews. He describes religious and magical thoughts and practices as ‘deep’ and related to feelings in a way that are unlikely for scientific opinions. Yet, realism concerning religious discourse need not take the form of quasi-science. What science lacks in this account is motivational force and the specific phenomenological ‘mysterious’ character associated with religion and magic. It is possible, however, that this absence only follows from this specific account and not from realism as such. I have argued elsewhere (Schaffalitzky de Muckadell 2009 and Schaffalitzky de Muckadell 2014) that the cognitive aspect which is a necessary condition for something being religion, must have specific phenomenological characteristics (namely a certain degree of being internalized and seen as important). I therefore agree with Wittgenstein that there is a built-in motivational force in religion, but I have also argued that this can be explained within a realist framework by looking at the phenomenology of propositional attitudes (cf. e.g. Klausen 2008: especially 450–452). The intuitive difference between religious and scientific systems of thoughts and practices need therefore not rest on one being anti-realist and the other being realist, if a realist approach can point to variations in phenomenological characters of cognitive content to explain the difference. By pointing to the phenomenological character of propositional attitudes one could provide a realist account which explains why religious beliefs are considered deep and important. It may appear that it also explains what Wittgenstein sees as a lack of necessary links between thoughts and practices. But with this argument, Wittgenstein, in fact, goes beyond a debate about realism or anti-real-



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ism concerning discourse on religion and into an empirical question of whether people change their practices if they are confronted with an ‘error’. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein is not sufficiently elaborate in his example to allow for a detailed discussion. It appears he means to say that there are examples of people whose actions are not affected even when they are confronted with evidence against their apparent beliefs (e.g., that the Madonna crying blood was a hoax, or that pushing pins in a voodoo dolls has no effect on the person the doll represents). Arguably, such examples can be interpreted in various ways. Wittgenstein’s expressivist reading will suggest that there is no cognitive content and therefore no recognition of error and so no chance in action. However, a cognitivist interpretation could suggest that the belief involved is so deep-set, internalized and considered so important that it cannot (or only with difficulty) be shifted. Cases of these kinds of beliefs are discussed in theory of science under the label of the so-called ‘Max Planck Effect’ (cf. Harris 1998). In these cases, the scientific community moves on while only ‘a few elderly hold-outs’ (Kuhn 1996: 159) remain dedicated to hypotheses that the rest consider superseded or even refuted (Priestley’s insistence on the existence of phlogiston is a famous example). These cognitivist realist and expressivist anti-realist interpretations, however, are actually empirical hypotheses and, more importantly, they may both be true. It seems entirely possible that these two kinds of religion could co-exist so that some people see their religious discourse as cognitivist, while others see it as expressivist. This would mean that some people (the expressivists) will not change their practices and thinking because an ‘error’ cannot occur (and the ‘correction’ is thus irrelevant), while other people (the cognitivists) will not change their practices and thinking because of the inertia which characterizes the phenomenological character of their religious views will mean that they do not agree that there is a mistake. (Yet, there also appears to be a third possibility, namely that some people (Frazer-style cognitivists) would change their minds, and maybe even a fourth possibility, namely that one may see one’s discourse as cognitive, while it is, in fact, expressivist.) On this view, the realist cognitivist account may be true regarding some people and some discourse elements; the anti-realist expressivist account may be true regarding others. It is, unquestionably, difficult to discern whether someone is more adequately described as a discourse realist or anti-realist (we will return to this later), but the idea can be illustrated by considering two variants of voodoo practice: one characterized by discourse realism and one characterized by creative discourse anti-realism. Suppose someone practicing voodoo is confronted with strong scientific evidence that there are no reasons to think that voodoo practices have any effect on the persons targeted by the practices. Suppose further that this person does not change her practices after receiving this evidence – will this be

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an example that supports an anti-realist or a realist interpretation concerning discourse? Arguably, it is compatible with both. If she has an anti-realist view, she may continue because the cognitive content is irrelevant to her practices. If she has a realist view, she may continue because the inertia of her cognitive content will leave it (largely) unaffected by the scientific evidence.

The Objection from Implausible Stupidity This brings us to the second objection to the realist account, namely whether the realist account implicitly implies that the religious person is stupid in believing things that are improbable for someone who does not share this person’s religious beliefs. This objection can be met (at least in part) by allowing that religious cognitive content is not limited to beliefs, but may equally include other kinds of cognitive attitudes such as fear, faith, and hope (cf. e.g. Audi 2008 for an account of distinctions between these). So, to continue with the above example: a discourse realist concerning voodoo practices is not committed to a belief that pushing pins in a voodoo doll will have causal effect on the person targeted. Instead, it could be the case that the person fears that it has an effect (if she is the potential victim of voodoo magic) or hopes that it will work (if she is the one who initiated the magic). In this case the person may not believe that the magic works, but still share a realistic view on religious discourse. For instance, to hope something is to have a certain attitude towards a propositional content – i.e. a content which is truth-apt (unlike the boos and hoorays of classical expressivism). Adding this modification to the discussion also paves the way for another suggestion: namely that there is in fact a continuum between the science-like realism attributed to Frazer and Wittgenstein’s expressivist anti-realism. Allowing for not only belief, but also additional kinds of cognitive attitudes, would make it possible to suggest a more sophisticated account of religious discourse with several possible alternatives. These alternatives will span from what I will call ’quasi-scientific realism’ over two kinds of realism to expressivist anti-realism. Let us briefly look at these different views on religious discourse. Quasi-scientific realism is the position identified in the Frazer account. According to this view, people will view their discourse on religion and magic as systems of thoughts and practices resembling quasi-science and quasi-technology. On Wittgenstein’s account this view sees religious thoughts as beliefs and theories about the world which are implausibly stupid and strangely unrelated to practices in that, first, it remains unexplained how such quasi-scientific ideas can motivate actions, and, secondly, because criticism of these ideas appear to have no effect on practices.



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A way to remedy these defects is to move to another kind of realism, which does not equate religious beliefs with scientific beliefs, but argues that they are different, in part because they are phenomenologically characterized by an internalized feeling of existential importance which is not likely matched by scientific theories. However, this will only address the objection about motivation, not the objection that the realist view on discourse appears improbably stupid. A realism with a broader view on cognitive attitudes can accommodate part of this objection. Instead of equating the cognitive attitude concerning religion with beliefs, one can allow for other kinds such as hope or fear, which will defuse the critique somewhat. Because it is arguably epistemologically less expensive to fear that Judgment Day will come soon, than to believe that it will come soon. This kind of realism would also easily explain the link between religious thinking and motivation because it is of the clearer phenomenological character of fears and hopes. To take the earlier example, one may believe that voodoo magic does not work, but fear that it does, because one’s evidence – although fairly good – is not good enough to rule out entirely that voodoo magic does work. Similarly, it is common to believe something (e.g. that I locked my house this morning), but at the same time fear that one is wrong (i.e., that I left the house unlocked). Moreover, what we fear or hope is not plausibly determined by intellectual reflection in any straightforward way. For instance, it would be unreasonable to say that someone with a fear of (harmless) spiders is stupid. She may well recognize that her fear is not rationally grounded but be unable to change the behavior she exhibits around spiders. Some may think that these realist alternatives make Wittgenstein’s account superfluous. It has also been argued that the creative anti-realist account of religious discourse makes religious thoughts and practices meaningless because the emphasis on human construction in creative religious anti-realism makes it difficult to ‘continue to be gripped’ by it and it is not seen as referring to an independent reality (Trigg 1999: 19, see similar objections in e.g., Alston 1995b: 31, Trigg 1999: 119, Klausen 2007: 11–12, Oppy/Trakakis 2007: 128, Taliaferro 2013: section 3 and Forrest 2013: section 6). However, creative anti-realism clearly is a possible way for people to view their discourse on religion and magic. That some regard it as an unattractive possibility may be a sign that they themselves have a realist conception of religious discourse, but this does not show that an anti-realist conception is impossible. In fact, a key point of this analysis is that some people may be realists (in various ways) while others are anti-realists. Both theories can explain intuitions and examples to some degree and they are not mutually exclusive answers to the question: what kinds of religious discourse are there? It is not even clear that it

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is not the case that religious people shift between realist and anti-realist positions depending on circumstances and the precise issue at hand. It is well known within the study of religion, that lived religion offers a variety of mixed religious traditions (cf. e.g. McGuire 2008) and perhaps the same is the case in philosophy of religion. Accordingly, it may be misleading to think of the nature of religious discourse as one particular way of seeing one’s own discourse. And, equally important, this question must be separated from the normative question of what the correct way of seeing religious discourse is. To settle this question one would need to answer a completely different (and more intricate) question of what the truth is about religious objects.

Challenges for the Empirical Study of Religion The above analysis has consequences not only for discussions within philosophy of religion about realism/anti-realism debates and the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s view, but also for the empirical study of religion which has been influenced by these discussions. First, the conclusions pertain to the demarcation of the field of the study of religion, second, the analysis may well influence interpretations and explanations of religious phenomena, and, third, it poses certain methodological challenges. The study of religion is trivially concerned with religion. However, as mentioned above, it is highly controversial within the study of religion precisely how ‘religion’ should be defined and so what the field of study of the discipline is (cf. e.g. Schaffalitzky de Muckadell 2014). So, if there are both realist and anti-realist views on religious discourse among religious people, do they then both fall within the definition of religion, or not? As mentioned above, it has been argued (in Trigg 1999 and elsewhere) that what we have called anti-realism concerning religious discourse cannot really form the basis of religion. This is because anti-realism involves a naturalization of religious thoughts that reduces religion to empirical facts and so makes religious language and practices incomprehensible. Accordingly, the scholar of religion will need to consider the definition of her field of study in this respect. These discussions, which grow from interpretations of Wittgenstein, have to be considered not only out of theoretical interest, but also because the issue is likely to have practical consequences for interpreting and explaining religious phenomena. For instance, conversion may well have different causal explanations depending on whether it takes place within a realist or an anti-realist discourse context because a realist view will allow for a stronger connection between cognitive content and motivation. Similarly, studies of the relationship



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between religious and political or moral views would be expected to turn out differently depending on the kind of religious discourse studied. For these reasons it is important for the scholar of religion to address the question of whether her subject field is characterized by realism, anti-realism or both. This leads us to the methodological challenge. If both realist and anti-realist views on religious discourse are found among religious people (and it makes a difference to religious psychology and behavior which one is true of the case at hand), then the question arises how to determine whether realism or anti-realism (or a mixture) best represents the case. But how is this to be achieved? Several difficulties present themselves here. First, one’s informants may not have reflected on this point and so may not be able to articulate their views. Second, religious or social restraints may prevent them from voicing their views. Religious restraints can spring from the wish to act and think in accordance with theological teachings, and social restraints from a wish not to stand apart from others. These challenges may not be insurmountable, but they need to be addressed.

Conclusions Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer and his own writings on religious discourse have been an important source of inspiration for anti-realist views within philosophy of religion and subsequently for the empirical study of religion. Wittgenstein raises two objections to the realism concerning the religious discourse he finds in Frazer. He argues that realism cannot be the correct interpretation of the way people understand their discourse, first, because this would mean that they were implausibly stupid, and, second, because Frazer’s realism does is in conflict with the fact that religious thoughts and practices can be unrelated. In response, I have argued that including other cognitive attitudes than beliefs will blunt the force of the stupidity objection, and I have outlined an alternative explanation to the problem of why religious and magical practices are not changed in the light of criticism of religious thoughts. These strategies show the possibility of developing plausible ways to account for realism concerning religious discourse, yet they do not contradict the possibility of anti-realist views of religious discourse. Accordingly, it is possible that some have a realist conception of their religious discourse, while others subscribe to creative anti-realism. In fact, there may be a continuum of different approaches and people may shift between them. In addition, a single person may have realist view of some parts of her religious discourse while retaining an anti-realist view of other parts. This means that no account need fit all instances of religious thoughts and practices.

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Realism and anti-realism can co-exist. So, a realist or anti-realist approach is not a necessary condition or defining trait of religious discourse. On this issue, I have also argued that Wittgenstein appears to accept that there are several ways to be religious and think about one’s religious discourse. These conclusions have an important impact on the study of religion. Further studies are needed, but it seems clear that scholars of religion will need to pay close attention to the possibility of there being two views of religious discourse, as this will influence both theoretical choices concerning field of study and explanations and methodological practices.

References Alston, William P. (1995a) “Realism and the Christian Faith”, in: Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 38/1–3, 37–60. Alston, William P. (1995b) “Taking the Curse Off Language-Games: A Realist Account of Doxastic Practices”, in: Timothy Tessin and Mario von der Ruhr (eds.): Philosophy and the Grammar or Religious Belief, New York, 16–47. Audi, Robert (2008) “Belief, faith, and acceptance”, in: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 63, 87–102. Byrne, Peter (2003) God and Realism, Aldershot. Clack, Brian C. (1999) Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion, Basingstoke. Culpitt, Don (1993) “Anti-Realist Faith”, in: Is God Real?, ed. Joseph Runzo, New Haven, 45–55. Devitt, Michael (1991) Realism and Truth, 2nd edition, Princeton. Forrest, Peter (2013) “The Epistemology of Religion”, in: Edward N. Zalta (ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/ religion-epistemology/. Date of access: 4 October 2015. Harris, Randy Allen (1998) “A Note on the Max Planck Effect”, in: Rhetoric Society Quarterly 28, 85–89. Hick, John (1993) “Religious Realism and Non-Realism: Defining the Issue”, in: Joseph Runzo (ed.): Is God Real?, New Haven, 3–16. Klausen, Søren Harnow (2007) “Religion light? Mod religiøs antirealisme”, in: Filosofiske Studier 3, 1–16. Klausen, Søren Harnow (2008) “The phenomenology of propositional attitudes”, in: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7, 445–462. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago. Mackie, J. L. (1977) Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth. Malcolm, Norman (2003) “The Groundlessness of Belief”, in: Paul J. Griffith and Charles Taliaferro (eds.): Philosophy of Religion: An Antology, Oxford, 182–188. McGraw, Clare (2008) “The Realism/Anti-Realism Debate in Religion”, in: Philosophy Compass 3/1, 254–272. McGuire, Meredith B. (2008) Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life, Oxford.



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Oppy, Graham/Trakakis, Nick (2007) “Religious Language Games”, in: Andrew Moore and Michael Scott (eds.): Realism and Religion: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, Aldershot, 103–130. Phillips, D. Z. (1966) Concept of Prayer, New York. Phillips, D. Z. (1970) Faith and Philosophical Enquiry, London. Phillips, D. Z. (1993) “On Really Believing”, in: Joseph Runzo (ed.): Is God Real?, New York, 85–108. Plantinga, Alvin (1982) “How to be an Anti-Realist”, in: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 56/1, 47–70. Rhees, Rush (1997) “Religion and Language”, in: D. Z. Phillips (ed.): Rush Rhees on Religion and Philosophy, Cambridge, 39–49. Runzo, Joseph (ed.) (1993) Is God Real?, New Haven. Schaffalitzky de Muckadell, Caroline (2009) Defining Religion: A Philosophical Case Study, Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions, University of Southern Denmark, Odense. Schaffalitzky de Muckadell, Caroline (2014) “On Essentialism and Real Definitions of Religion”, in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82/2, 495–520. Schilbrack, Kevin (2010) “Religions: Are There Any?”, in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78/4, 1112–1138. Smith, Jonathan Z. (1978) Map is not Territory. Studies in the History of Religions, Leiden. Taliaferro, Charles (2013) “Philosophy of Religion”, in: Edward N. Zalta (ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/philosophy-religion/. Date of access: 4 October 2015 Thomasson, Amie L. (2003) “Realism and Human Kinds”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67/3, 580–609. Tilghman, B. R. (1993) An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion, Oxford. Trigg, Roger (1998) Rationality and Religion: Does faith need reason?, Oxford. Trigg, Roger (1999) “Theological Realism and Anti-Realism”, in: Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro (eds.): A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Oxford, 213–220. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993a) Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993b) “Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough – Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”, in: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis, 119–155.

Biographical Notes Lars Albinus is Associate Professor at the Department of Culture and Society, University of Aarhus, Denmark. He has published various books and articles on Greek Religion, philosophy of science and philosophy of religion, and has dealt especially with the views of modernity espoused by Habermas and Foucault. His current research centers on new perspectives in philosophy of religion drawing on Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Nancy. Steen Brock is Associate Professor at the Department of Culture and Society, University of Aarhus, Denmark. He has been part of a research group which in association with the Wittgenstein Archive in Bergen has developed a new way of indexing Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. He has published books on Niels Bohr’s philosophy of physics, and papers on Kant, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Cassirer, and Wittgenstein. He is currently senior researcher in a project dealing with agriculture, landscape management and food culture. Marco Brusotti is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy) and university lecturer [Privatdozent] in philosophy at the Technical University [TU] Berlin. He graduated in philosophy from the University of Genoa and completed his doctoral studies [PhD] and university teaching accreditation [Habilitation] at the TU Berlin. He was winner of the Joachim Tiburtius award in 1995 from the city-state of Berlin. He is President of the Nietzsche Society [Nietzsche-Gesellschaft] and member of the advisory board of the Friedrich-Nietzsche Foundation. Among his most recent publications on Wittgenstein are: Wittgenstein, Frazer und die „ethnologische Betrachtungsweise“, Berlin/Boston 2014; „Es ist schwer sich an kein Gleichnis zu verlieren.“ Zu einem sprach- und kulturphilosophischen Thema Wittgensteins, in: J. Rothhaupt und W. Vossenkuhl (Eds.): Kulturen & Werte. Wittgensteins Kringel-Buch als Initialtext, Berlin/Boston 2013: 225–242; „Wittgensteins Nietzsche. Mit vergleichenden Betrachtungen zur Nietzsche-Rezeption im Wiener Kreis“, in: Nietzsche-Studien 38 (2009): 335–362. Mauro Luiz Engelmann is Professor of Philosophy at UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais) and researcher at CNPq (National Research Council, Brazil). He received his PhD in Philosophy from the UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) in 2008. He has published Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Development: Phenomenology, Grammar, Method, and the Anthropological View (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and several papers on Wittgenstein and the History of Analytic

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­ hilosophy. In 2015 (January–December) he will be a visiting scholar at the P IHPST, Paris, and at Cambridge University. James C. Klagge is a Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech, where he has taught for 30 years. He first took a class on Wittgenstein as an undergraduate, and has since then written a dozen papers on Wittgenstein and written, edited or co-edited four books on Wittgenstein –most recently Wittgenstein in Exile (MIT Press, 2011). Andreas Koritensky studied philosophy and catholic theology in Mainz, Frankfurt and Munich. His dissertation was dedicated to Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion – published as Wittgensteins Phänomenologie der Religion in 2002 (Kohlhammer). Currently he teaches philosophy at the Hochschule für Philosophie, Munich, and the Theology Department, Paderborn. Wilhelm Krüger has participated as a researcher at the Wittgenstein Archive in Bergen (WAB) under several EU financed digital humanities projects. He was inter alia part of the team that transcribed and published the machine-readable version of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass (BEE). Teaching at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Bergen, Krüger’s main interests, besides Wittgenstein’s work and Digital Humanities, lie in the philosophy of science and analytic philosophy. Lars Madsen is a PhD fellow at The Study of Religion at Aarhus University, Denmark. His main philosophical interests are the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. His research centers on the philosophical aspects of and approaches to modern objectifying theories in the scientific study of religion, especially the cognitive science of religion. Anders Klostergaard Petersen obtained a master degree in theology in 1994 from the University of Aarhus. He had a stipend for Jerusalem in 1994 and had a post-doc position at the University of Tübingen 1995–1998. In 1998 he became Assistant Professor in New Testament Studies at the University of Aarhus. In 2002 he became Associate Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion with a special focus on formative Judaism and Christianity. Since 2012 he has held a professorship in the same discipline at the same department. He has more than 400 publications in a variety of fields on early Judaism, Christianity, theoretical and methodological questions pertaining to the study of ancient culture and religion.



Biographical Notes 

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Josef G. F. Rothhaupt is an adjunct university lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and also teaches philosophy, ethics, religion and art at the Rainer-Werner-Fassbinder Technical-Upper-Secondary-College in Munich. He completed his doctoral studies at the Philosophical Institute of Higher Education in Munich with a thesis on “Colour in the Complete Oeuvre of Wittgenstein”. His expertise lies in the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the exploration of the complete Wittgenstein oeuvre. In addition, he works in the fields of the philosophy of art, aesthetic theory, the pedagogy of philosophy and ethics as well as the scholarship of critical editions. He is the author/editor of many articles and publications on Wittgenstein. In 2008 he attained the teaching accreditation [Habilitation] at the Ludwig-Maximilan University in Munich. He is co-editor of the publication series “Über Wittgenstein/On Wittgenstein”. Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell is Associate Professor in Philosophy of Religion at University of Southern Denmark. One of her main areas of research is methodological and philosophical discussions of empirical studies of religion. The title of her PhD was Defining Religion: A Philosophical Case Study (2009) and a recent article within the area is “On Essentialism and Real Definitions of Religion” (2014) in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen is Associate Professor in Practical Philosophy at the Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark. She has published a monograph on virtue ethics as well as a number of articles on the implication of Wittgenstein’s work for ethics. Her work can be found in journals such as Journal of Applied Philosophy, Philosophia, Journal of Value Inquiry and Sats. She is president of The Nordic Wittgenstein Society and is currently co-editor of the Nordic Wittgenstein Review. She is working on a project on the role and status of ethical theory in moral philosophy and moral life. Peter K. Westergaard is Associate Professor at the Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His areas of research are the history of ideas and the philosophy of religion. Westergaard’s interests center on the philosophy of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. His most recent publications are Mennesket er et ceremonielt dyr. Ludwig Wittgensteins Bemærkninger om Frazers “Den gyldne gren” [Man is a ceremonial animal. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”], (Anis) 2013, and Kritik og tro. Hume, Kant, Nietzsche og Wittgenstein [Critique and Belief. Hume, Kant, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein], (Anis) 2015.

Index Abraham 51 Ackerman, Robert A. 313, 370, 371, 375–380 Adonis 89, 344 Alaric 12, 13 Albinus, Lars 3–7, 4, 56, 127, 220, 246, 339–365, 373, 421 Almeida, João José de 234, 246 Alston, William 404, 405, 415 Ambrose, Alice 28, 168, 242 Andersen, Hans Christian 176 Andronico, Marilena 322 Anscombe, G. Elizabeth M. 69, 225, 226, 237, 291, 294, 297 Apuleius Madaurensis, Lucius 396 Aristotle 61, 62, 272 Attis 131 Audi, Robert 414 Aue, Maximilian A. E. 102, 236 Augustine of Hippo 50–51, 261, 269, 270, 282, 283, 287, 393, 408 Ayer, Alfred Jules 355 Bacon, Roger 143 Baker, Gordon 243, 311, 316–317, 322, 323, 333 Barrett, Justin 391 Batsch, August 23 Beethoven, Ludwig van 191 Beidelman, Thomas O. 381 Beversluis, John 72, 74, 234, 235, 239 Blute, Marion 376 Boas, Franz 316 Boltzmann, Ludwig 133, 156, 187, 188 Borges, Jorge Luis 11–12 Bourdieu, Pierre 325, 326 Bouveresse, Jacques 131, 133, 155, 312 Boyer, Pascal 390, 391 Breithaupt, Fritz 322 Bremer, Jozef 57 Brock, Steen 5, 125, 175–203, 187, 188, 195, 207, 211, 218, 233, 421 Brusotti, Marco 5, 6, 80, 132, 160, 311–337, 312, 314, 315, 319, 323, 326, 329–331, 334, 421

Bühler, Karl 387 Burton, Robert 12 Byrne, Peter 405, 406 Cahill, Kevin M. 131, 134, 152, 155 Camus, Albert 383 Cann, Kathleen 330 Cassirer, Ernst Alfred 188, 200, 323 Cavell, Stanley 175–180, 196, 198, 199, 202 Chambrier, Marguerite de 54 Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard 3, 4, 5, 6, 207–231, 222, 226, 423 Cioffi, Frank 131, 292, 312, 315, 351 Citron, Gabriel 5, 13, 19, 28, 76, 85–97, 330, 340, 354, 357, 359 Clack, Brian R. 131, 312, 316, 317, 363, 373, 374, 408, 409 Claudius, Matthias 102 Comte, Auguste 342, 377 Conant, James 187, 260, 355 Copernicus, Nicolaus 215 Cripps, Peter 307 Culpitt, Don 410 Czachesz, Istvan 389 Darwin, Charles 18, 19, 93, 168, 216, 217, 331, 332, 342 DeSmith, Felicia 200, 211 Devitt, Michael 405, 406 Dewey, John 316 Diamond, Cora 130, 140, 187, 208, 224, 225–228, 260 Dostoevsky, Feodor Mikhailovich 130, 156, 158–160 Douglas, Mary 326 Downie, R. Angus 312 Drury, Maurice O’Connor 17, 19, 20, 57, 130, 133, 153, 269, 297, 314 Durkheim, David Émile 375 Durt, Christoph 312 Eco, Umberto 371 Edwards, James C. 221, 222 Einstein, Albert 215

426 

 Index

Eldridge, Richard 347 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 179 Engelmann, Mauro Luiz 5, 126, 129–173, 131, 135, 145, 152, 246, 312, 421 Engelmann, Paul 159, 160 Erbacher, Christian 246 Ernst, Paul 26, 37, 56, 200, 270 Esenbeck, Gottfried Daniel Nees von 323 Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. 343, 371 Ezust, Emily 102 Fenny, Chelsea 387 Faria, Paulo 155 Felken, Detlef 133 Ficker, Ludwig von 161 Fischer, Eugen 246 Floyd, Juliet 187, 190, 192 Forrest, Peter 415 Fox, Craig 171 Fraser, Robert 313, 314 Frege, Gottlob 133, 137, 138 Freud, Sigmund 339, 347, 348, 350–354, 358 Galton, Francis 266, 327–330, 332 Garver, Newton 224 Gaster, Theodor H. 370 Gebauer, Gunter 312 Geertz, Clifford 317, 375 Gellner, Ernest 224 Genova, Judith 213, 221, 222 Gentz, Nicole 102, 127 Gier, Nicholas F. 222 Gillen, Francis James 377 Ginzburg, Carlo 326 Glock, Hans-Joachim 124 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 5, 19–25, 31, 148–152, 168, 200–202, 269, 277, 283, 285, 302, 311, 322–325, 327–328, 330, 331, 332, 346, 347 Griesecke, Birgit 322, 325 Grimm, Jacob und Wilhelm 56, 270, 369 Guthrie, Stewart 391 Habermas, Jürgen 350 Hacker, Peter M. S. 45, 46, 123, 131, 140, 165, 187, 200, 243, 293, 312, 322, 324

Hänsel, Ludwig 160–162 Haller, Rudolf 152 Hallett, Garth L. 322 Harris, Randy Allen 413 Harrison, Jane 377 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 342, 378 Heidegger, Martin 341, 361 Helmholtz, Herman von 188  Hertz, Heinrich 133, 156, 187, 188 Hick, John 405 Hilmy, Stephen 118, 327 Hintikka, Jaakko 238 Hübscher, Paul 322 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 285 Husserl, Edmund 341 Hutto, Daniel 346, 347 Isis 396 Jablonka, Eve 376 Janik, Allan 342 Jesus 131, 170, 386 Joad, Cyril E. M. 86 Johnston, Paul 131, 152 Joseph, Horace William B. 86, 87 Josephus, Flavius 344 Kafka, Franz 383 Kant, Immanuel 150, 322 Kenny, Anthony 236 Kerr, Fergus 293 Ketner, Kenneth L. 296 Keynes, John Maynard 130, 156–159, 162, 168 Kienzler, Wolfgang 160, 161 Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye 130, 156, 161–163, 179 Kippenberg, Hans G. 272, 383 Klagge, James C. 1, 3, 5, 73, 132, 149, 159, 171, 233–248, 234, 235, 244, 246, 270, 281, 284, 286, 294, 296, 347, 422 Klausen, Søren Harnow 412, 415 Knight, Helen 86 Koritensky, Andreas 5, 269–288, 314, 422 Kraft, Victor 110 Kraus, Karl 129, 130, 133, 155, 156, 161 Kremberg, Bettina 322

Index 

 427

Krüger, Heinz Wilhelm 4, 5, 101–128, 102, 246, 422 Kuhn, Thomas S. 413 Kuper, Adam 380

Munz, Volker 17 Murdoch, Iris 373 Musil, Robert 342 Myers, Charles Samuel 44

Lamb, Marion J. 376 Lang, Andrew 312 Lara, Philippe de 312 Leach, Edmund Ronald 313 Leeuw, Gerard van der 272 Leonardo da Vinci 353 Liénard, Pierre 387 Loos, Adolf 133 Luckhardt, C. Grant 72, 102, 234, 236 Lugg, Andrew 124, 171

Nähr, Moritz 328 Naugle, David K. 222 Nedo, Michael 101, 236, 293, 328 Needham, Rodney 312 Nestroy, Johann Nepomuk 130, 133, 156 Nietzsche, Friedrich 156 Nordmann, Alfred 1, 3, 73, 234, 235, 246, 270, 281, 284, 286, 322 Nyiri, J. C. 224 Nyman, Heikki 236

Macaulay, Thomas Babington 312 Macbeth 179 MacCormack, Sabine 342, 345, 346 MacDonald, Margaret 28, 168 Mácha, Jakub 246 Mackie, John L. 406 Madsen, Lars 3, 4, 5, 6, 249–268, 347, 356, 422 Majetschak, Stefan 312 Malcolm, Norman 410 Mannhardt, Wilhelm 377, 379, 380, 382 Marett, Robert Ranulf 272, 313, 325–326, 376 Margalit, Avishai 312 Marion, Mathieu 190, 192 Markus (Evangelist) 386, 390 McGraw, Clare 406 McGuinness, Brian 104, 111, 159, 186 McGuire, Meredith 416 McLennan, John 377–379 Miles, A. C. 3, 71, 234, 241, 244, 245 Miller, John F. 217 Mona Lisa 353 Monk, Ray 190, 322 Moore, George E. 5, 13, 16, 17, 18, 28, 77, 85–97, 86, 87, 89, 139, 140, 152, 168, 241, 242, 257, 258, 292, 311, 330–331, 332, 340, 341, 349, 354, 373 Moses 85 Motturi, Aleksander 124 Müller, Max 341

Ockham, William of 139, 141 Ogden, Charles Kay 103 Oppy, Graham 415 Origen Atamantius 57 Orwell, George 155 Orzechowski, Andrzej 234 Ott, Walter 246 Otto, Rudolf 272 Otto, Walter F. 272 Pascal, Fania 159 Paul, Denis 236 Paul the Apostle 54 Pears, David 186 Petersen, Anders Klostergaard 4, 6, 7, 345, 369–401, 378, 385, 422 Phillips, Dewi Zephaniah 237, 312, 405, 406, 410, 411 Pichler, Alois 26 Planck, Max 188, 413 Plantinga, Alvin 405 Plato 47, 57, 94, 134, 202, 273, 282, 342, 343 Pleasants, Nigel 211 Plessner, Helmuth 209 Plinius 12 Prichard, Harold Arthur 87 Priestley, Raymond Edward 413 Puhl, Klaus 121, 345, 352–354 Putnam, Hilary 155, 227 Pyysiäinen, Ilkka 385, 387, 389

428 

 Index

Quine, Willard van Orman 137 Raatzsch, Richard 322 Ramsay, John 15, 16, 91 Ramsey, Francis P. 40, 41, 297 Rappaport, Roy 375 Rehbock, Theda 201 Reid, Luis Arnaud 86 Renan, Ernest 5, 44–56, 67, 130, 132, 165, 167, 170, 270, 315, 339, 344–346, 369, 372 Respinger, Marguerite 54 Rhees, Rush 3, 5, 17, 57–60, 67, 69, 71–74, 129, 145, 147, 194, 207, 211, 233–239, 241–245, 270, 291, 293, 294, 296, 297, 300, 312, 328, 340, 347, 348, 350, 353, 354, 360, 361, 410 Richards, Ivor Armstrong 103 Richter, Duncan 131, 229 Ricken, Friedo 11, 47 Ricoeur, Paul 348, 353 Robertson Smith, William 376, 377, 379–381 Rogers, Brian 5, 13, 19, 28, 85–97, 330, 340, 354, 357, 359 Rorty, Richard 341 Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. 3, 4, 5, 7, 11–83, 23, 27, 44, 54, 79, 80, 89, 127, 229, 238, 238, 272, 304, 312, 314, 322, 327, 328, 330, 340, 423 Rowe, Mark W. 322 Rudich, Norman 312, 315 Runzo, Joseph 406 Russell, Bertrand 103, 132, 133, 136–141, 143, 155–157, 160 Ryle, Gilbert 317 Salzer, Helene Lenka 328 Satlow, Michael 386 Savigny, Eike von 102, 119, 123 Schaffalitzky de Muckadell, Caroline 4, 6, 211, 403–419, 405, 407, 412, 416, 423 Schieren, Jost  201 Schilbrack, Kevin 405 Schiller, Friedrich 21–24, 27, 28, 30, 67, 277, 318, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 329 Schlick, Moritz 110, 190, 191, 349 Schopenhauer, Arthur 133, 141

Schubert, Franz 167, 254, 267, 301 Schulte, Joachim 72, 124, 148, 201, 233, 234, 235, 322, 346 Scott, Walter 91 Seery, Aidan 7, 54, 127 Segal, Robert 371 Shandy, Tristam 383 Sisyphus 343, 383 Smith, Deirdre 127 Smith, Jonathan 25, 75 Smith, Jonathan Zittell 313, 315, 371, 382–384, 405 Smith, Robert 376, 377, 379–381 Smythies, Yorick 17 Socrates 94, 342 Söderblom, Lars Olof Jonathan 272 Sørensen, Jesper 375, 386–389, 391, 392, 398 Spencer, Herbert 316 Spencer, Walter Baldwin 376, 377 Spengler, Oswald 4, 5, 24, 26, 28, 31, 33, 36, 38, 40, 41, 129–136, 143, 144, 147–163, 168–170, 175, 184, 200–202, 213, 223, 278, 317, 318, 319, 342, 346 Sraffa, Piero 111, 112, 122, 126, 127, 133, 135 Stassen, Manfred 312, 315 Stern, David 4, 5, 13, 19, 28, 76, 77, 85–97, 152, 237, 330, 340, 354, 357, 359 Sterne, Laurence 383 Stocking, George W. Jr. 314, 316, 326, 371, 377, 378 Stonborough-Wittgenstein, Margarethe 328 Strenski, Ivan 371, 377, 378 Tacitus 344 Taliaferro, Charles 406, 415 Tambiah, Stanley J. 293, 326 Taylor, Alfred Edward 86, 87 Taylor, Charles 348 Ter Hark, Michel 105 Tertulian 57 Thomas, Keith 388 Thomasson, Amie L. 404 Tilghman, Benjamin R. 410 Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich 130, 156, 158–162, 170

Index 

Toulmin, Stephen 342 Townsend, Raymond 17, 297 Trakakis, Nick 415 Trigg, Roger 406, 415, 416 Turner, William 18, 331 Tylor, Edward B. 271, 325, 346, 371, 377, 378, 380, 382 Veyne, Paul 395 Vickery, John B. 315 Waismann, Friedrich 103, 104, 190, 191, 201, 323, 349 Watson, William Hariot 188 Weil, Simone 57

 429

Weininger, Otto 133 Weizenbaum, Joseph 155 Westergaard, Peter K. 4, 5, 68, 79, 124, 208, 211, 291–309, 340, 423 Whitehouse, Harvey 396 Winch, Peter 211, 224, 343 Wißmann, Hans 280, 370, 371 Wittgenstein, Helene see Salzer, Helene Lenka Wittgenstein, Hermine 110, 160, 162, 328 Wittgenstein, Margarethe see StonboroughWittgenstein, Margarethe Wright, Georg Henrik von 1, 163, 233, 237, 291, 297 Wyse, William 12, 13, 14, 74–76