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Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hermann Broch: the Need for Fiction and Logic in Moral Philosophy Christopher Bailes Washington University in St

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Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hermann Broch: the Need for Fiction and Logic in Moral Philosophy Christopher Bailes Washington University in St Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) 5-24-2012 Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hermann Broch: The Need for Fiction and Logic in Moral Philosophy Christopher Bailes Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Recommended Citation Bailes, Christopher, "Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hermann Broch: The eN ed for Fiction and Logic in Moral Philosophy" (2012). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 681. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/681 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures Dissertation Examination Committee: Paul Michael Lützeler, Chair Julia Driver Matt Erlin Erin McGlothlin Gillian Russell Lynne Tatlock Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hermann Broch: The Need for Fiction and Logic in Moral Philosophy By Christopher Wade Bailes A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2012 Saint Louis, Missouri Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Washington University in Saint Louis for their generous financial support. My dissertation benefited from various guest lecturers, conferences, and graduate seminars supported by the university, and would not have been financially feasible without the tuition waivers and more than adequate living stipends that kept me afloat. I would like to thank various friends with diverse areas of expertise whose conversations were stimulating and directly relevant to themes in my dissertation. These friends include Sundeep Jayaprabhu, Joe Behrmann, Kayce Swigelson, Rob Macdougall, Peter Boumgarden, Tim Clark, Florian Bast, Isaac Wiegman, Kaylin Bolt, Tim Bussen, Stephen Casmier, Michael McFarlane, Father Gregory, and Father Ralph. I would like to thank two philosophers who were not on my committee but who were generous enough to meet and discuss parts of my dissertation. These include Roy Sorensen and Harry Frankfurt. My dissertation committee deserves acknowledgement for their considerable labor involved in reading and critiquing this work, it consists of Gillian Russell, Julia Driver, Lynne Tatlock, Erin McGlothlin, Matt Erlin, and Paul Michael Lützeler. Special thanks to Matt Erlin as the second reader of my dissertation; his articulate thoughts on each of my chapters helped clarify and focus my thoughts and writing. And above all, Paul Michael Lützeler, the chair of my dissertation committee and my primary advisor, who provided the nurturing guidance that helped stimulate my thoughts. His broad knowledge—particularly of Hermann Broch—work ethic, and keen intelligence were indispensible for the completion of this dissertation. ! "" Table of Contents I. Acknowledgements, ii II. Table of Contents, iii III. Abbreviations, iv-v Introduction, 7-17 Chapter 1, 18-62: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and the Birth of Analytic Philosophy Chapter 2, 63-114: Broch, the First ‘Post-Analytic’ Philosopher Chapter 3, 115-174: Broch’s Die Unbekannte Größe and Wittgenstein’s Über Gewissheit Chapter 4, 175-232: Viewing the World ‘Sub Specie Aeternitatis’: Wittgenstein and Broch’s Der Tod des Vergil ! """! Abbreviations Works by Arendt “AHB” = “The Achievement of Hermann Broch” HAHB = Hannah Arendt—Hermann Broch, Briefwechsel 1946-1951 Works by Broch G&Z = Geist and Zeitgeist KW = Kommentierte Werkausgabe HHT = Hofmannsthal and his Time: The European Imagination 1860-1920 MHB = Materialien zu Hermann Broch ‘Der Tod des Vergil.’ TSW = The Sleepwalkers PSB = Psychische Selbstbiographie Works by Carnap “EOM” = “The End of Metaphysics” Works by Wittgenstein BTS = The Big Typescript CL = Cambridge Letters: Correspondence with Russell, Keynes, Moore, Ramsey, and Sraffa C&V = Culture and Value LWP = Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology “LE” = “Lecture on Ethics” LVC = Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann NTB = Notebooks, 1914-16 OC = On Certainty PI = Philosophical Investigations RFM = Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics TLP = Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Works by Bertrand Russell ABR = Autobiography of Bertrand Russell HKSL = Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits HWP = A History of Western Philosophy KEW = Our Knowledge of the External World MPD = My Philosophical Development ROE = Russell on Ethics Works by Arthur Schopenhauer WWR = The World as Will and Representation Works by Immanuel Kant CPR = Critique of Pure Reason ! "# GMS = Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten Secondary works “AGC” = “The Avant-Garde in Crisis: Hermann Broch’s Negative Aesthetics in Exile.” “ANL” = “Autonomy, Necessity, and Love” HBM = Hermann Broch und die Moderne: Roman, Menschenrecht, Biografie HBB = Hermann Broch: Eine Biographie “PLW” = “Pictures, Logic, and the limits of sense in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus” VIE = Hermann Broch, Visionary in Exile: the 2001 Yale Symposium SCA = Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity “TDE” = “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” TOS = Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting it Right ! # “Der Philosoph trachtet, das erlösende Wort zu finden, das ist das Wort, das uns endlich erlaubt, das zu fassen, was bis jetzt/dahin/immer, ungreifbar, unser Bewusstsein belastet hat.” Ludwig Wittgenstein1 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The Big Type-Script,” Philosophical Occasions (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993) 165. ! #" ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Introduction In an end-of-the-century survey of philosophers in Canada and the United States, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was ranked the fourth most important work of philosophy in the twentieth century, and his Philosophical Investigations was ranked first.2 Wittgenstein was perhaps nowhere more influential than in the Vienna Circle, under whom Broch pursued his university studies in the late 1920s. The philosophers and scientists of the Vienna Circle were world-renowned in their fields, and saw in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus a promising way to end the metaphysical and ethical speculation that had preoccupied philosophers to no avail for millennia, and which they believed had prevented philosophy from progressing commensurate to the sciences. New and powerful mathematical logic seemed to offer the means through which language could be made more precise, and philosophical confusions avoided and dissolved. But Wittgenstein objected to the manifesto of the Vienna Circle and the ethos that inspired it. Upon invitation of the Vienna Circle to attend their private meetings, Wittgenstein appeared, but refused to discuss philosophy, instead recited poetry as he defiantly turned his back. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 Douglas P. Lackey, “What are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in the Twentieth Century,” The Philosophical Forum. Vol. XXX, No. 4 (1999): 331. ! $! This dissertation has two primary aims. The first is to show the intellectual/historical context in which Wittgenstein’s thoughts influenced, or have parallels, to Broch’s. The second is to address the substantive question that preoccupies much of Broch’s literary and philosophical works; namely, what are the complementary roles of literature and philosophical logic in revealing the ethical and volitional necessities that guide our actions and shape our moral sensibilities, more specifically, whether anything can be done by means of literary or philosophical exploration that might yield in our minds greater confidence in the viability of our ethical discernment. Broch’s position on this latter question is inconclusive; he turns to literature in hopes of finding a better ethical vehicle than the philosophy of his era, but then despairs and turns to psychology and political science. Wittgensteinian theories will help illuminate some of the more obscure aspects of Broch’s thought. This dissertation will maintain a prima facie affirmative position to the thesis that ethical questions, broadly conceived, are not resolutely answerable through either philosophical argument alone, or through literary/artistic contemplation and analysis alone, but that each of these activities has important contributions to make to the construction of our web of ethical beliefs. I qualify my affirmation of this thesis because of the diversity of the psychologies across our species, which may very well consist of incorrigible personalities not affected by literature, or rational persuasion, in the same way as Broch and Wittgenstein. The importance of acknowledging differences in personality is stressed in an influential article, “Against Narrativity” (2004), in which Galen Strawson shows how pervasively—across many academic disciplines—scholars view personal narrativity as an ! %! essential ingredient to living a good and meaningful life. Strawson objects, and argues against the belief that all of us live our lives only as a part of an autobiographical context, and that all new events we experience are only given meaning as they are perceived in the context of our personal
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