Wittgenstein

1 The very first of these, “The Aeroplanes at Brescia,” imagines a meeting — which could have happened — between Kafka and Wittgenstein at an early air show.

2 Wittgenstein believed that language isn’t separate from reality.

3 It dates from 1991, and reflects their more fathomable philosophical discussions, which often centered on Ludwig Wittgenstein, who Murdoch briefly knew at Cambridge University.

4 Donald Hall turned to a philosopher, and his two-line "Poem beginning with a line of Wittgenstein" is an extraordinarily neat upending of the reader's expectations.

5 Wittgenstein drew a distinction between meaningful propositions and those that only seemed meaningful, famously ending the “Tractatus” with an aphorism: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.”

6 Wittgenstein, for his part, knew what he wanted them to do, at least in his published work.

7 Instead I wrote down a few titles on a napkin—“Suspended Sentences,” “Wittgenstein’s Poker,” “Shantytown,” “Heart of a Dog”—and handed it to him.

8 This book is short the way Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus” is short—it passes over in silence what language could only obscure and falsify.

9 Wittgenstein rejected Prokofiev’s composition, but Mr. Volodin made an eloquent case for it, bringing across its pervading struggle toward lyricism yet ultimately confirming its status as the weakest of the set.

10 It is easy to assume that Wittgenstein’s point here is a relativist one: we say their knowledge is inferior to ours; but they say the same about us.

11 Wittgenstein's mysticism is not in the materials but the mathematics.

12 She is ultimately able to "absolve" Wittgenstein, whose theory, in this case, can be tested on the taste-buds.

13 As Wittgenstein wrote, “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”

14 It is not known what the Wittgensteins displayed in the vitrine, and it will be left empty at the museum.

15 Wittgenstein had a notion of understanding as seeing connections rather than building a theory.

16 No follower of Wittgenstein can accept the notion of ‘evidence’ uncritically—indeed, some would claim they cannot accept it at all.

17 She loved word games, played Civilization as an antidote to work, studied Wittgenstein and religions, and in her 60s took up tap dancing.

18 In the history of science literature it is generally taken for granted that Wittgenstein was a relativist.

19 Other historical figures march through the text as well: Wittgenstein, Tesla and Oppenheimer signal the role of accident, failure and fiction in creating history.

20 His favourite philosopher was Wittgenstein, and his knowledge about philosophy, art, dance and music was enormous.

1 路德维希

Ludwig Feuerbach Prandtl Leichhardt Mies van der Rohe