Nordic Wittgenstein Review 7 (2) 2018 | pp. 215-219 | DOI 10.15845/nwr.v7i2.3519
BOOK REVIEWS Editor: Martin Gustafsson
Wittgenstein and Modernism edited by Michael LeMahieu and Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé
O. M. Lagerspetz
Michael LeMahieu and Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé, eds, Wittgenstein and Modernism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-226- 42040-0, 336 pp.
This collection of essays relates there is a kind of affinity between Ludwig Wittgenstein to modernism. Wittgenstein and his modernist It features chapters by the following contemporaries like Adolf Loos, authors: Charles Altieri, Kristin Robert Musil, Walter Benjamin, Boyce, Anthony J. Cascardi, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Henry Piergiorgio Donatelli, Eli Friedlander, James and Franz Kafka – to mention John Gibson, Allan Janik, Michael some famous modernists discussed in LeMahieu, Yi-Ping Ong, Marjorie this anthology. Perloff and Karen Zumhagen-Yepklé. In post-war reception, Wittgen- The high point of modernism, as stein was often cast as a conservative a trend in literature and art, occurred rather than modernist. His partiality to in Wittgenstein’s life-time. However, the culture of German late Enlighten- there never was an established ment and early Romanticism is well philosophical movement known as known. He voices misgivings about modernism. As the editors point out, “the entire modern view of life” “modern philosophy” stands for (Wittgenstein, TLP 6.371), its belief in Western philosophy from Descartes progress and its “spirit” of “building onwards, much of which Wittgenstein an ever more complicated structure” no longer thought was viable. Still to which he opposes his own
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Book Reviews CC-BY approach: one for which “clarity, modernist impulses that contributed perspicuity are valuable in to Wittgenstein’s philosophical themselves” (Wittgenstein, CV, p. 7e). development. (2) One can look for The contradiction is solved if we affinities between Wittgenstein’s work distinguish between modernism and and contemporary works of fiction modernity (see, e.g., the chapter by without claiming direct influence Cascardi, p. 23). The ideal of either way; and (3) one can juxtapose perspicuity is central for Goethe, but Wittgenstein and some modernist it is also a defining feature of work, letting the one elucidate the modernism, as evidenced, e.g., in the other, even in cases (as with Saul architecture of Adolf Loos (see the Bellow) where any influence seems contributions by Janik, Donatelli and excluded. This book is divided into Friedlander). three parts roughly corresponding to The book makes repeated this division. references to Stanley Cavell. Cavell, In his contribution, Janik argues not unlike many others before and that, on the Viennese cultural scene, after him, defined a modernist work there were two distinct “modern- of art as one which breaks with the isms”. With his “critical modernism” past and questions its own medium. Loos emphasised craft, not art. Modernism does not ignore history, Everyday functional objects should but on the contrary it perceives itself not be small works of art, but their as occupying a particularly prob- judicious crafting should set art free to lematic point in it. Once-powerful perform its proper task, that of ways of doing art can today only shaking us up of our spiritual slumber. produce Kitsch. The artistic tradition Loos’ attitude chimes with must be continued, but one can do so Wittgenstein’s idea that philosophy only through completely new forms should be “businesslike”. The house of expression. Wittgenstein similarly Wittgenstein and Engelmann de- considered that established ways of signed for Wittgenstein’s sister was, doing philosophy were no longer however, not really functionalist but open to him. Tractatus can be seen as a rather a kind of stripped-off classical monument to the modernist ethos, a representative building. full stop to an entire philosophical For most writers in this collection, style. the emphasis is on Wittgenstein’s Modernism, in this perspective, is early work, especially the Tractatus, the a kind of romanticism. It glorifies the publication of which coincided with search for new means of expression that of some of the most acclaimed and it glorifies artists and poets, modernist works of fiction (e.g., spiritual guides taking over from Eliot’s Waste Land and Joyce’s Ulysses). priests and scientists. One feature stands out: Wittgenstein’s Relations between Wittgenstein struggle with limitations of the and modernism are open to many linguistic medium. kinds of treatment. (1) One can trace
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Nordic Wittgenstein Review 7 (2) 2018 | pp. 215-219 | DOI 10.15845/nwr.v7i2.3519
Zumhagen-Yepklé compares the however, leads the reader to ethical agenda of the Tractatus, philosophical insight. The profound including Wittgenstein’s letter to his insight consists in – well, first and publisher, with a reading of Ulysses. foremost, in the recognition that one The ultimate ethical insight of the should not write books like the Tractatus comes out in what is left out, “body” of the Tractatus. and must be left out of any treatment It seems to me that there is a that merely describes “what is the problem here, however. After all, the case”. The solution to the problems of ethical remarks to which Zumhagen- life consists in the disappearance of Yepklé refers, also belong to the the questions themselves, which is “body” of the Tractatus. Moreover, why those who have found the Wittgenstein presents them (TLP solution cannot describe it to others 6.41–6.522) as something that follows (TLP 6.521). This is also, Zumhagen- from his earlier treatments of logic, Yepklé suggests, the very insight that science and the metaphysical subject. Joyce conveys in “Ithaca”, the final, Gibson, himself mildly in favour fact-laden chapter of Ulysses. of “New Wittgenstein”, takes issue The experience of value, then, lies with Rupert Read’s extended beyond discursive language. Donatelli “resolute” analysis of the poetic work suggests, in a similar vein, that our of Wallace Stevens. Read describes insight of having lost a fully human Stevens’ poetry as therapeutic non- command of language opens up the sense which “discloses the sensical possibility of “expressing a dimension through ‘violating’ the limits of language” of life through its absence in (quote on p. 140, emphasis in the language” (p. 106). In her contri- original). Gibson acknowledges for bution, Ong compares Wittgenstein’s his own part that a kind of “willed “Lecture on Ethics” with Kafka’s opacity” is distinctive of modernist “Report for an Academy”. Just like poetry. However, he points out that the ape Red Peter literally sits in a Wittgenstein always demanded cage, Wittgenstein runs up against the sensitivity to linguistic context. What walls of the cage of our form of life. counts as nonsense in a philosophical Many contributors adhere to a treatise would not necessarily do so in standard “resolute” reading of the a poem. If we go along with Read we Tractatus. The idea is that Tractatus must, however, “approach each line in presents “a mock doctrine”, “a meta- an incredibly literal manner and then physical lure” (Zumhagen-Yepklé, p. find it surprising that each line falls 177, 191). Its sentences are “mere apart if so approached” (p. 140) – nonsense, indistinguishable from which is “a very peculiar way to gibberish, and unable to convey any approach a poem of this sort” (p. illuminating ethical (but ineffable) 141). insights” (p. 178). Recognising the Questioning the traditional nonsensicality of the “body” of the psychological and metaphysical work (but not of its “frame”), subject is another hallmark of
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Book Reviews CC-BY modernism. This theme is addressed, Wittgenstein’s attitude, inspired by in particular, by two authors: Fried- Tolstoy, was, on the whole, one of lander and LeMahieu. Friedlander embracing spirituality but respectfully starts from Wittgenstein’s remarks on dismissing all theological formu- subjectivity in Tractatus, 5.6–5.641. In lations of it. a factual description of one’s The underlying modernist senti- experiences, for instance an imagined ment is, once more, the feeling that book called The World as I found it (TLP our means of dealing with what is 5.631), the subject just disappears. “higher” are not adequate for the task. Subjectivity is, however, present in it Along these lines, Donatelli describes in an indirect way. It is not revealed in Loos’ views on how to include facts the writer tells us about herself, spirituality in architecture. Spirituality but in the fact that the reader is is shown in our responses, not in offered a view, a perspective from verbal formulations; thus, “the full somewhere. Thus the idea of a command of the language of perspicuous presentation is also a architecture is shown [...] in the solution to the question how the capacity of response to a burial site, subject can be represented: we do so with solemnity and a sense of the by presenting a uniquely, meaningfully significance of life and death” (p. 113). organised world. Friedlander high- No doubt Loos wanted us to think of lights here the work of Walter a silent response. Benjamin, who considered photo- But it seems to me that this graphy as a way to reveal meaning example should really point to a through perspicuous representation. limitation of the modernist approach. Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investi- There is hardly just one reaction to gations also call Cartesian subjecthood death and burial. The reverent attitude into question, but in another kind of that Loos takes for granted is con- way. LeMahieu addresses Witt- ditioned on ideas of transcendence, genstein’s private language consider- typically as formulated in organised ations in his chapter, “Bellow’s religion. A sense of transcendence Private Language”. For Bellow and may survive as a kind of atavism with for Wittgenstein, private language was the first generation of those who elusive and, with it, also the psycho- dispose of religious dogma. But can logical subject as traditionally con- the same attitude at length be kept alive ceived. The question for both was by philosophy and art if they eschew how to ward off personal disinte- positive ideas of transcendence? gration when classical subjectivity is In sum, this is a fascinating and out of the picture. heterogeneous collection of essays. I Distrust of organised religion was have not been able to address all of its an important strand of the modernist chapters. Especially Wittgenstein’s self-image. Wittgenstein was a early work seems to lend itself to modernist also in this respect, as fruitful comparisons with modernist Perloff shows in a helpful summary. writers. I would personally like a
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Nordic Wittgenstein Review 7 (2) 2018 | pp. 215-219 | DOI 10.15845/nwr.v7i2.3519
follow-up with a more critical writers discussed looks somewhat assessment of some key ideas of arbitrary. It seems to reflect the modernism, in ways that go beyond specialisations of the contributors merely juxtaposing Wittgenstein with rather than any unifying vision of some writer or other. Wittgenstein’s modernist context. It For many contributors to this includes writers whom Wittgenstein anthology, the emphasis is on the never read or whom he dismissed limitations of the linguistic medium, (e.g., Kafka; cf. Monk 1990, 498). It perhaps hinting a way out through leaves out others who were important poetry. ‘The limit of language’ – ‘the to Wittgenstein (e.g. Hugo von other side of which will be simply Hofmannsthal and Rabindranath nonsense’ – is a thoroughly modernist Tagore) or who influenced his milieu idea. However, it is also a (e.g. Peter Altenberg and Arthur metaphysical and, worse still, a Schnitzler). On Wittgenstein’s mod- dogmatic idea, as Wittgenstein later ernist context, Janik and Toulmin’s came to recognise. It is probably the book (1973) still remains unrivalled. most obvious piece of nonsense in all of Wittgenstein’s writings. Surely it Åbo Akademi University, Finland would have been worth some Olli.Lagerspetz @ abo.fi sustained scrutiny in this anthology. In his chapter Cascardi helpfully reminds us that the idea of meaning as lying outside language is completely abandoned in Philosophical Investigations. References Wittgenstein’s interest is not on Janik, A. and Toulmin, S., 1973. nonsense but on the sense that we do Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York: find immanent in grammar. Touchstone Books). With the notable exception of Monk, R., 1990. Wittgenstein: The Duty Adolf Loos, this collection is of Genius (New York: Free Press). overwhelmingly focussed on writers of fiction, not on visual artists like Wittgenstein, L., 1980 (CV). Culture Malevich, musicians like Schönberg, and Value, trans. P. Winch journalists like Kraus or philosophers (Chicago: The University of like Mach, Weininger, Bergson or Chicago Press). Bataille; perhaps because many of the Wittgenstein, L., 1922 (TLP). contributors come from departments Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of English. Moreover, the list of (London: Kegan Paul).
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