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THE MYSTICISM of SIMONE WEIL and LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN by KGM Earl Submitted in Partial Fulfilment Of

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THE MYSTICISM of SIMONE WEIL and LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN by KGM Earl Submitted in Partial Fulfilment Of EFFING THE INEFFABLE: THE MYSTICISM OF SIMONE WEIL AND LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN by K G M Earl Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2015 © Copyright by K G M Earl, 2015 To Dan Chook-Reid, without whom I wouldn't have known this was my passion and calling, and I wouldn’t have pursued it as such. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” ~ Isaiah 55:8-91 “Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” ~ Douglas Adams2 Soli Deo Gloria. 1 Biblical quotations throughout are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. 2 Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, 150. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED ............................................................................ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 1.1 THE MYSTICAL .............................................................................................. 2 1.2 METHODOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES ................................................................ 3 1.3 SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 2 THE PERSISTENT MYSTICISM OF LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN .................................................................. 7 2.1 INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER ....................................................................... 7 2.2 TRACTARIAN DEEP NONSENSE ...................................................................... 8 2.3 MYSTICISM IN THE LATE WITTGENSTEIN ................................................... 12 2.3.1 Logic, Limits, and the Philosophical Investigations .............................. 13 2.3.2 The Mystical in the Philosophical Investigations .................................. 14 2.3.3 The Mystical Elsewhere in Wittgenstein’s Writing ........................ 17 2.4 THE PROBLEM OF MYSTICISM .................................................................... 20 2.5 CONCLUSION TO CHAPTER ......................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 3 THE CHRISTIAN PLATONISM OF SIMONE WEIL ...................... 23 3.1 INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER ..................................................................... 23 3.2 ANTI-SPINOZIST PLATONISM ....................................................................... 25 3.2.1 Creation as Renunciation .............................................................. 26 3.2.2 An Inverted Platonism ................................................................... 27 3.3 LOVE, JUSTICE AND THE GOOD .................................................................. 29 3.3.1 Love as an Orientation Towards the Good ................................... 30 3.3.2 Justice and the Love of God .......................................................... 31 3.4 THE PROBLEM OF MYSTICISM ..................................................................... 34 3.5 CONCLUSION TO CHAPTER ......................................................................... 36 iii CHAPTER 4 RELIGION AND THE MYSTICAL .................................................... 37 4.1 INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER ..................................................................... 37 4.2 WEIL, UNIVERSALITY AND THE SOCIAL BEAST .......................................... 38 4.3 WITTGENSTEIN AND THE PUZZLE OF RELIGION ........................................ 41 4.3.1 Religion as Expression ................................................................... 42 4.3.2 Religious Beliefs and the Impossibility of Genuine Disagreement ........................................ 43 4.3.3 Religious Belief, Disagreement, and Rules .................................... 44 4.3.4 Grammar, Belief, Rules, and Praxes ................................................ 47 4.3.5 Grammar and Real Belief ............................................................. 50 4.3.5 Grammar and the Mystical ........................................................... 51 4.4 CONCLUSION TO CHAPTER ......................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 5 REVELATION ...................................................................................... 54 5.1 INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER ..................................................................... 54 5.2 ON READING ................................................................................................ 55 5.3 ON LOGICAL STRUCTURE ........................................................................... 57 5.3.1 Frege’s Insight ................................................................................ 57 5.3.2 Tractarian Revelation .................................................................... 58 5.4 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION .......................................................... 59 5.5 CONCLUSION TO CHAPTER ......................................................................... 61 CHAPTER 6 MYSTICAL PRAXIS AND THE PROBLEM OF MYSTICISM ..................................................... 63 6.1 INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER ..................................................................... 63 6.2 DECREATION ................................................................................................ 64 6.3 MALHEUR ...................................................................................................... 66 6.3.1 The Cry ......................................................................................... 67 6.3.2 Evil, Non-Being, and the Good ..................................................... 67 6.3.3 Wittgenstein, Malheur, and Decreation .......................................... 69 6.4 ATTENTION .................................................................................................. 70 6.4.1 Attention and Justice ...................................................................... 71 iv 6.4.2 Attention, Creation, and Decreation ............................................. 73 6.5 CONCLUSION TO CHAPTER ......................................................................... 76 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 78 7.1 SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 79 7.1 CONTINUATIONS .......................................................................................... 80 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 82 v ABSTRACT Both Simone Weil and Ludwig Wittgenstein hold mysticism—i.e., the belief in something utterly transcendent—centrally. The mysticism present in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus presents a problem: if “the mystical” is a “deep” nonsense, and there is something important that cannot be sensibly presented in language, we are left in an undesirable situation. The mystical is taken to be of paramount importance, but is ultimately inaccessible to reason. Weil, starting with political and theological considerations, arrives at a similar problem. A mystical position yields the “problem of mysticism”: There is the mystical; it is of crucial importance, and it is inaccessible to our reason. Weil’s mystical praxis of decreation is a solution to the problem. This does not present a way that we can come to the mystical, but a way that we can become aware of its revelation, which bypasses our reason. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED CV Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value ECR Simone Weil, Essay on the Concept of Reading FLN Simone Weil, First and Last Notebooks GG Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace LC Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief LE Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lecture on Ethics OC Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty OL Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty PI Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations RF Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough SE Simone Weil, Selected Essays 1934-1943 TLP Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus WG Simone Weil, Waiting for God vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my mother, for getting me here despite all odds, and for encouraging me to pursue my dreams, even (especially) when she doesn't understand them. I am grateful for the friends who have listened to me talk at length about the material herein. I am grateful for the mentorship of Susan Norman, without which I would no doubt have gone crazy during graduate school. I am grateful to professors Sophie Bourgault and Paul Forster for introducing me to Weil and Wittgenstein, respectively. Thanks are due to my housemates Rob, Jay, Ken, Charity, and Lourens for the home they have created in which I have been able to thrive. Finally, I would like to thank Duncan MacIntosh for his supervision, and Steven Burns and Michael Hymers for their participation on my committee. I could not have done this without their help and encouragement. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
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