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Sub Specie Aeternitatis Somogy Varga Sub Specie Aeternitatis An Actualization of Wittgenstein on Ethics and Aesthetics Somogy Varga abstract This article will present an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s under­ standing of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. In extension, it will inform recent discussions regarding a special kind of nonsensicality, which forms a central part of ethical and aesthetical expressions. Instead of identity between ethics and aesthetics, we should understand the relationship in terms of interdependence. Both attitudes provide a view sub specie aeternitatis and thus permit a view of the world as a whole. Employing the vocabulary of Charles Taylor and Harry Frankfurt, it must be remembered that rather than a neutral view from nowhere, such wholeness arises out of strong evaluations that are made against the backdrop of a constitutive framework of intelligibility. At this point, the epistemic gain of actualizing Wittgenstein will reveal itself: it will put us in a position where it is possible to differentiate between ethi­ cal and aesthetical forms of identification that Taylor and Frankfurt neglect. However, in order to actualize Wittgenstein’s ideas, it is necessary to argue that Tractatus should not be understood in a Kantian fashion as suggested by Tilghman for instance. keywords Wittgenstein, sub specie aeternitatis, ethics, aesthetics, identifi­ cation In his famous sentence, “Ethics and Aesthetics are one and the same,”1 Wittgenstein emphasizes the intrinsic connection between two fields of study, to which he was particularly devoted. He points to his profound fascination of aesthetical questions: “I may find scientific questions in- teresting, but they never really grip me. Only conceptual and aesthetical questions do that.”2 On the other hand, although the reception of his early work was regarded as a foundation for logical positivism,3 Wittgen- stein has given ethics as a central theme of the treatise in diary record- ings and letters written parallel to the treatise.4 In a letter to the editor of Der Brenner, Ludwig von Ficker, Wittgenstein notes: My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits.5 Other sources, such as Paul Engelmann, confirm that Wittgenstein em- phasized the ethical dimension of his book and considered this its fun- damental point.6 The notion of sub specie aeternitatis is central to under- standing his struggle to identify something he could classify as ethically The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics No. 35 (2008), pp. 35–50 Somogy Varga good. In Tractatus he says, “[t]o view the world sub specie aeternitatis is to view it as a whole – a limited whole.”7 In a later remark from the Notebooks dealing with this subject, Wittgenstein emphasizes the ethical importance: “… the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis.”8 In Tractatus, ethics and aesthetics – these two apparently central con- cerns in Wittgenstein’s thought – are brought together in a rather short bracketed remark: It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and Aesthetics are one and the same.)9 Even though Wittgenstein emphasized aesthetics and ethics, it seems that his thoughts on these subjects received comparatively modest at- tention in subsequent Wittgenstein research. To a certain degree this has to do with the fact that Wittgenstein’s remarks about this subject are ex- ceedingly brief, fragmented and sometimes enigmatic. This also makes any attempt at extracting a theory of aesthetics or ethics from these spor- adic remarks rather challenging and perhaps even problematic. Addi- tionally, the assumption of a faultless unified aesthetics or ethics seems problematic and in many ways outdated; so why the inconvenience of engaging in this problematic subject? The motivation for working with these considerations lies in the potential for informing more recent dis- cussions. This is why the aim of this article will be to shed light on his views regarding the unity of ethics and aesthetics and to clarify the role of aesthetics in an ethical orientation. In the initial presentation I will examine the possibility of talking about ethics and aesthetics within Tractatus; and proceed by elucidating the posited oneness of ethics, aesthetics and the common perspective of the whole (sub specie aeternitatis) that this provides us with (I).10 Rather than emphasizing oneness, I will elaborate on internal differences of per- spectives in the second part, which makes clear the relationship between ethics and aesthetics and the ethical role of aesthetics (II). In conclusion, I will spell out the genuine merits and the actuality of Wittgenstein’s ac- count. I will attempt to show that Wittgenstein’s account does not inscribe itself in the Kantian or Nietzschean discourse, but establishes a middle path between these two views (III). The elucidation of this matter will entail going beyond the limits of Tractatus and take into consideration additional sources such as the Notebooks (1914–1916) and the more long-winded thoughts from ‘Lecture on Aesthetics’, ‘Lecture on Ethics’ and On Certainty.11 36 Sub Specie Aeternitatis: An Actualization of Wittgenstein on Ethics and Aesthetics I. The importance of nonsense At first sight it may seem somewhat odd to discuss these subjects, es- pecially with the opening remarks of the Tractatus in mind. Wittgen- stein states that the whole argument of the book could be summed up as follows: “What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.”12 Since ethical and aesthetical statements are not logically connected to facts in the world they clearly belong to these spheres of silence. So how can Wittgenstein emphasize the ethical impetus of his work? After all, as Russell notes, “Mr Wittgen- stein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said.”13 What sense does it make to clarify their relationship when they exceed the limits of propositional language such that nothing can be said about them? There is a tradition for what one could call the therapeutic interpreta- tion of what Wittgenstein calls nonsense. There is the resolute way of do- ing this (defended by C. Diamond and J. Conant),14 which takes nonsense to mean nothing but plain nonsense, but one that engages us – one that shows us the limits of sense and cures us from our need for metaphys- ics.15 Also, in P. M. S. Hacker’s far less radical and in many ways different interpretation, we find the idea of nonsense as something with a thera- peutic potential.16 What I am suggesting is also a therapeutic reading, but a reading that approaches the issue differently than these authors. I suggest that we understand the issue of nonsense through his late work, especially On Certainty. Although there are major differences between Wittgenstein’s early and later thoughts, I think there are good reasons for taking up such an approach. Firstly, there are interesting parallels be- tween the way in which he addresses the scaffolding of our thoughts in On Certainty and the idea of the scaffolding of the world found in Tractatus 6.124. In On Certainty, this scaffolding is the non-propositional basis of thought, which – construed as propositions – is deemed to be nonsensi- cal. Such scaffolding does not have a contrast and is falsifiable.17 Also, as G. E. Moore explained, we cannot imagine it not being true, wherefore it can be said to have “no sense.”18 In this regard, Tractarian sentences elu- cidate the conditions of sense, describe the scaffolding of the world and must therefore remain nonsensical. Writing, thinking or understanding propositions about this basic level of being must always already presup- pose the scaffolding, the fundamental framework of the world, within which observations regarding entities can intelligibly be stated, which it aims to explain. It is on such grounds that Wittgenstein maintains that ethics and aesthetics have been misunderstood throughout the history of western 37 Somogy Varga philosophical thought.19 The pictorial form of language depicts and presents the structure of the world in its form, representing the con- figuration of things by being connected to the thing through “feelers.”20 This is exactly what ethical and aesthetical value statements lack; the absence of referents in the world makes them stand outside the realm of what I might call propositionality.21 They cannot generate truth or false- hood, since truth or falsehood would only emerge between the world and its picture.22 So for Wittgenstein, the philosophical misapprehen- sion of ethics and aesthetics derives from such a referentiality-mistake. The construction of meaning through referentiality is not applicable to these realms, since they lie outside of the space of referential language. This begs a somewhat provocative question: why then engage in deal- ing ethical and aesthetical stands, which Wittgenstein clearly does? Here, I think the key term is again nonsense. Nonsense is, as we have seen, not necessarily a pejorative term. As Wittgenstein says in Culture and Value, “… don’t for heaven’s sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.”23 Curiously, for Wittgenstein, men have attempted an intentional transgression of linguistic boundaries to reflect on the meaning of life and values. This is an “… absolutely hopeless …” attempt, “… running against the walls of our cage …”24 This attempt is a document of a tendency in the human mind: “My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to turn against the boundaries of language.”25 It is a mani- festation of a tendency, which Wittgenstein “… personally cannot help respecting …”26 as an essential part of being human.
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