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a study in civility and arrogance [*]
In 1956, when I was a callow sixteen-year-old sophomore early entrant to the University of Chicago, I read my first twentieth century philosophical book, A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic. While I had already gorged on the Russian novelists, read through the then obligatory Hemingway and Faulkner, consumed Freud and a raft of popular sociologists, and managed to get myself expelled from my tenth grade social science class for issuing disparaging quotes from Marx and Schopenhauer, I was only then being introduced to classical philosophical and scientific texts through the marvelous and soon-to-be-by-stages-dismantled Robert Hutchins’ three year great books curriculum, in which the Natural Sciences sequence began with Aristotle’s Physics, Bk. II, continued with Galileo’s Dialogue, selections from Newton’s Principia, and on to papers by Laplace, Mach, Jeans and Einstein. Mathematics ABC was a simplified version of whole stretches of Principia Mathematica, the content of Russell’s great work having become common collegial culture for logicians and mathematicians.
I soon read some of the less technical works of Russell, whom Ayer cast as Hamlet to his own humble Horatio, and of David Hume, whose skeptical contentions Ayer claimed merely to update and cast into a linguistic vein. With the further help of Hume and Russell, I emended Rene Descartes’s insufficiently skeptical “I think, therefore I am” to the minimalist “There are experiences”. I wryly chuckled in agreement with Russell’s saucy contention that the only materialists in the world were Russian commissars and American behavioral scientists. Common sense realism about physical objects leads to science, which inevitably refutes naïve realism. Disaster and apostasy loomed in my first concerted encounter, at the graduate course level, with 20th century Anglo-American philosophy. Young, newly-appointed Vere Chappell – a confident Yale acolyte of ordinary language philosophy – assigned us two G. E. Moore essays that comfortably asserted common sense realism, “proving” the existence of the external world of objects by raising one hand, and then, to make it plural, the other, and then stoutly insisting that he was surer of their existence than of any dissenting assertion. Taking this to be an argument comparable to Samuel Johnson’s here-to-fore impossibly crude “refutation” of Berkeley, which consisted of kicking a stone, I submitted a scornful and confident critique of Moore to Professor Chappell, who gave me a failing grade of C and appended the comment “cavalier” in his neat red script. Next up we read Russell’s 1918-19 Philosophy of Logical Atomism, which I soon realized was supposed to exemplify the very worst sort of building houses out of cards, just the sort of language-on-holiday scientistic popularizing poppycock that Wittgenstein’s Investigations, our final reading, righteously scourged, Wittgenstein now cast in the role of fully-realized Savior to Moore’s John the Baptist. Philosophy, my would-be profession, now had nothing to do with science! Rather, “doing philosophy” had now become an esoteric form of linguistic psycho-analysis that fought off the mind’s bewitchment by language, and left everyday experience and our common old city as it is, undistorted by grand card-house illusions. Indeed, it guarded the world of everyday experience from the arrogant and improper intrusions of science. While the Investigations and his lecture books make clear Wittgenstein’s skepticism about set theory and introspective psychology, we must be grateful for Ray Monk’s copious demonstration, in his 1990 biography of Wittgenstein, The Duty of Genius, that in his more informal comments, Wittgenstein came to disparage, despise, and condemn science in general as perhaps the chief evil of our age. Aside from mentioning that Wittgenstein disdained Russell’s attempts to write philosophy for the general reader, Professor Chappell never said anything about Russell’s vigorous and radical political and moral advocacy, but it was obvious to us that such gadfly-on-the-body-of-the-state activity was, conveniently, neither professional nor philosophical, and indeed the furthest thing from “doing philosophy”. While I had first understood my C grade rather as the third grader in a Catholic school understands how “three can be one” after the nun has suitably ministered to his knuckles with her ruler, I soon learned to do linguistic analysis in Professor Chappell’s ordinary language manner. I received an A+ on my term paper, and “paradigm case argument” and “don’t look for the meaning, look for the use!” soon slipped as easily from my lips as “you can’t get an ought from an is”. Even in the full throes of conversion, I did notice a few incongruities. Professor Chappell wore three-piece J. Press suits, Wittgenstein, scruffy leather jackets (although Monk tells us these and the rest of his wardrobe were very carefully selected in shopping expeditions). And when I briefly took to following Wittgenstein’s example in my philosophical prose, writing short conversational sentences, addressing my reader as “you”, dropping erudite footnotes, and avoiding all technical, scholarly, or philosophical terminology, the reaction was far more negative than the earlier “cavalier”. And why were people trying to extract philosophical theses, theories, arguments, and general views, from a text that relentlessly disavowed and railed against such activity – to ascribe a philosophy of language to a man whose unsystematic sketches displayed our linguistic, perceptual, and cognitive life as full of incoherence, families of resemblances, and illusions that tempt us to specious philosophical card house building? Further, Wittgenstein perpetually claimed, from the Tractatus to the Investigations, that philosophy was a trivial, non-genuine, deluding, and deeply pointless enterprise (except perhaps as practiced by himself). Going from Hamlet to a minor Horatio, I am reminded of a frustrated 1983 Oxford graduate student who remarked, after hearing another demolishing lecture from linguistics Professor Roy Harris, that it was hard to study a subject – linguistics – that her professor denied existed. But Wittgenstein cast such a magnetic spell that those who did not walk out generally fell under it. J. L. Austin claimed that a good motto for a philosopher is “neither a be-all or an end-all be”. Wittgenstein’s remarkable arrogance is that he was always trying to do both. In the Tractatus, after confessing that perhaps his “expressive craftsmanship” might have occasionally faltered, Wittgenstein said: On the other hand the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definitive. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved... The value of this work secondly consists in the fact that it shows how little has been done when these problems have been solved. (Wittgenstein 1922, p. 29)Hard to be more be-all and be-endian than that. In the preface to the Investigations, Wittgenstein says he has decided to publish because his results, variously misunderstood, more or less mangled or watered down, were in circulation. This stung my vanity. (Wittgenstein 1953, p. v-vi)Latterly, he adds, if my remarks do not bear a stamp which marks them as mine, – I do not wish to lay any further claim to them as my property. (Wittgenstein 1953, p. vi)This is of course the proud statement of an artist or poet, insisting on the inimitable trademark of his style, his voice. But it is inappropriate to a common collegial enterprise. Although he did enjoy having students, Wittgenstein, as the quotes above from the Investigations suggest, did not want philosophical disciples who would spread his views any more than a Jackson Pollock would want to spawn a second generation of Pollockians or a Faulkner, Faulknerian novelists. Nonetheless Wittgenstein did get disciples, lots of them. There are Wittgensteinians, just as there are or used to be Whiteheadians, Hegelians, Marxists, and so on. But there are no Russellians in the relevant sense. When Ayer said he was happy to be Horatio to Russell’s Hamlet, he was speaking for the collective field of logical positivism or, better, analytic philosophy more generally. It could be said that Russell originated analytic philosophy, but the collegial and civil Russell wouldn’t have said or thought this. Russell, in fact, handsomely credited Gottlob Frege for much of the initial work; indeed Frege might well have rested in obscurity had not Russell publicized his work. And through the 1910s, Russell frequently said that Wittgenstein was his natural successor at Cambridge and would take the next great steps in philosophical logic. It is impossible to imagine Wittgenstein behaving in this way: previous philosophy, of which he read little and found what little he read full of errors, was hopeless; and there was for him no good prospective for subsequent philosophy – at least in the near future. While Russell might enthusiastically refer to Wittgenstein as his natural successor in mathematical logic, it is impossible to imagine Wittgenstein regarding anyone as his worthy successor. Indeed he clearly did not feel he was engaged in a common enterprise to which one or another might make contributions to a collective project. Monk, in The Duty of Genius, quotes a poem of I. A. Richards about Wittgenstein, appropriately titled ‘The Strayed Poet’, Few could long withstand your haggard beauty,And Monk adds: Wittgenstein’s lecturing style, and indeed his writing style, was curiously at odds with his subject-matter, as though a poet had somehow strayed into the analysis of the foundations of mathematics and The Theory of Meaning. He himself [Wittgenstein] once wrote: ‘I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought to be written as a poetic composition.’[2]A keen example of this is Wittgenstein’s relationship with Friedrich Waismann, an Austrian Jew of the Vienna Circle but latterly an ally in, and public representative of, Wittgenstein’s attack on set theory and formalism in mathematics. Waismann followed Wittgenstein to England and Cambridge, and assiduously worked with Wittgenstein on co-authoring an account of his new philosophical views. Wittgenstein let him proceed with the project for some time but eventually detached himself, apparently telling Waismann that he must proceed on his own. The ensuing book, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, was in galley proofs in the late 1930s when Wittgenstein finally put his foot (or jackboot) down, using his considerable influence on Waismann and the press to stop publication. (Waismann continued to painstakingly work, rework, and expand the galleys until his death in 1959, and the book was finally published in 1965.) Wittgenstein also made a passing effort to, unsuccessfully, prevent Waismann from getting a philosophy post in England. This story may be profitably compared to the more well-known case of Wittgenstein’s attempt to get the Tractatus published shortly after the end of World War I. After several rejections, Wittgenstein pleaded with Russell to write an introduction so that a publisher might take a chance on publication, given the endorsement of a world famous philosopher. Russell dutifully complied, only to have Wittgenstein thunder that he had completely misunderstood the work. Russell went on to ensure its publication. A decade later Russell also cooperated with G. E. Moore in helping Wittgenstein get a teaching position in Cambridge. For his long and intermittent philosophical career, Russell worked within a common collegial community, respectfully reading and referring to other philosophical work. There is a common myth, abetted by Wittgenstein’s disciples among others, and occasionally by Russell himself, that Russell’s serious philosophical work, as opposed to popularizations and political and social commentary, ceased shortly after World War I. Nonetheless, Russell returned to technical philosophy in the late 1930s and the 1940s and did innovative and important work. Monk notes incredulously that W.V. Quine opined that Russell’s 1940 Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth was “Russell’s most important book” (Monk 1990, p. 144). Initial drafts of Inquiry were delivered to a University of Chicago class attended by Rudolph Carnap, Charles Morris, and others; Carnap later recalled, “Russell had the felicitous ability to create an atmosphere in which every participant did his best to contribute to the common task” (Monk 1990, p. 221). Inquiry was followed in 1948 by Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, in which Russell emphasized the importance of empirical science to philosophy – a view that many then found hopelessly dated but which now appears prescient. Wittgenstein, by contrast, was not only a poetical artist, he was specifically an epigrammist. In perhaps the best essay written on Wittgenstein’s work, Stanley Cavell likens him to La Rochefoucauld (Cavell 1962, p. 92). That is decidedly the point of Wittgenstein’s famous comment that his worthy “sketches” were trademarked as his own. Russell, on the other hand, occasionally wrote idiosyncratically in his least philosophical pieces – and he did write short stories. But his most philosophical writing, as Carnap’s remark suggests, is part and parcel of a common philosophical tradition (which is perhaps why my University of Chicago Mathematics ABC course contained no specific Russellian prose). In 1955, The Prisoner appeared, a movie in which Alec Guinness played a Polish Cardinal and Jack Hawkins his communist inquisitor/confessor (Grenville 1955). Roughly conforming to historical fact, the Hawkins interrogator, through sleeplessness and ingenious questioning, manages to convince the Cardinal that he is a proud and vain man who can only expiate his sinfulness to a working class populace through confessing to collaborating with fascists during and after World War II. Captivated inquisitorially, caught by memories of his childhood and distaste for his humble origins, the Cardinal confesses in open court. His suave confessor then has the best line in this remarkable, and remarkably political, movie. He says of the Cardinal, “A proud man would have been more skeptical.” The same might be said respecting Russell in Monk’s increasingly insistent indictment of him as a monstrously vain and prideful egotist. To invert Churchill’s remark that modest Clement Atlee had much to be modest about, Russell had much to be proud of. But what is extraordinary in Russell’s history are the instances in which he humbly submitted to a younger and less accomplished inquisitor who impressively insisted to Russell that he, Russell, was fraudulent, incapable of serious thought, lacking moral or person integrity or genuineness. Russell fell for this gambit most famously to Wittgenstein, but also to D. H. Lawrence and, to a lesser degree, others. After Russell completed Principia Mathematica, his next substantial philosophical work was The Theory of Knowledge, but Wittgenstein’s attack in 1913 on this and his other work, affected Russell so deeply that he felt, for many years, that he was incapable of serious technical philosophical work (the manuscript itself was not published until years after Russell’s death). Russell turned to writing on political and social topics and fiction. Through the Bloomsbury circle he came under the spell of D. H. Lawrence. For a time Russell was inspired by Lawrence’s wild, fascist talk and his penchant for criticizing Russell. But when war came, Russell eventually turned away from Lawrence’s anti-democratic and blood thirsty views. One of Lawrence’s parting shots may have seriously wounded Russell, “You are too full of devilish repressions to be anything but lustful and cruel. I would rather have the German soldiers with rapine and cruelty, that you with your words of goodness...It is not the hatred of falsity which inspires you. It is the hatred of people, of flesh and blood” (Monk 1996, p. 426). Doubtless a proudly cruel man would have been more skeptical. And presumably a proudly cruel man would have been less engaged. While Monk might have found the suggestion for his title in Richards’ line, “World-abandoning devotion to your duty,” Monk saws off “world-abandoning” part and adds “of genius” to get his title The Duty of Genius. We know Wittgenstein deplored Russell’s attempt to write about philosophy for the general public and we may suspect that he was no more pleased with Russell’s attempts to address the general public about moral and political matters. Familiarly, Russell vigorously campaigned for a quick and equitable end to World War I, losing many of his friends and his Cambridge lectureship, and spending six months in prison. Wittgenstein, on the other hand dutifully joined the Austro-Hungarian army, eventually becoming termed the “bible soldier” because of his attempts to recommend Tolstoy’s version of the Gospels. Tolstoy’s version avoids attributing any supernatural actions to Christ. Subsequently, Wittgenstein vigorously defended a view of religion that made it irrefutable to any scientific discovery, and his scorn for science was matched by his respect for religion. After his manifest failure as a schoolteacher, Wittgenstein sought to become a monk but was discouraged in this venture. “World-abandoning” does seem appropriate. When Russell visited the Soviet Union in 1920, he deplored the totalitarian regime long before Stalin’s ascendancy. Wittgenstein, however, held a rather romantic view of the Soviet Union long into the Stalinist era, even seeking jobs there as common labor for himself and one of his student companions. This was rather to the consternation of the Soviet authorities, who, in suspicion and puzzlement, were inclined to suggest an academic position to Wittgenstein. Monk’s remarks at the beginning of his second volume on Russell suggest that he is aware that someone else might put together the many facts he collected in a very different picture. That is certainly true. Yet Monk is perplexed that Russell’s apparently rational and intelligent daughter Kate sees a near wholly admirable Russell while more intimately contemplating the same data that Monk finds so appalling. Again he reports with astonishment that Russell’s first wife Alys retained a marked affection for Russell to her death several decades after their separation. What seems to particularly outrage Monk was Russell’s involvement in the Cuban missile crisis and his subsequent highly public anti-American activities. Or, even more, what enrages Monk is his belief that Russell might think his actions had any influence on the world’s events and that a professional philosopher should disgrace himself and the profession by egotistically engaging in public affairs. There is more than a little of Professor Chappell’s attitude in Monk’s screed against Russell. Philosophers shouldn’t address the general public, particularly about political matters, and they should never have the gall to believe that they can ever have any effect on political matters. Just as for Professor Chappell, no gadflies on the body of the state, please! When the Cuban missile crisis brewed up, with the USSR clearly trying to give Cuba some protection against repeated US invasion attempts, JFK produced a naval blockade of Cuba and demanded the removal of the partially installed missiles. Both actions were acts of war and ones without the slightest support from international law or the UN. Russell dispatched telegrams to Kennedy and Khrushchev, suggesting what in fact became the eventual solution – namely, that the US should forswear the invasion of Cuba and that the USSR should in turn remove its missiles, with the eventual removal of US missiles in Turkey. Khrushchev responded with a telegram to Russell, seemingly as an informal way of announcing his sentiments to the world. Kennedy did not address Russell directly, aside from the response to a reporter’s question that Russell did not speak for the Free World. Monk is quite right to insist that there is no credible evidence that Russell’s intervention had an effect on the event. However, there is no obvious evidence that it had no positive effect whatsoever. It may not be the duty of genius but it is the duty of anyone to speak out to the degree that they can for legality, morality, and peace in human affairs. Russell had a loud voice and took it as his duty to make it as loud as he could and use it rationally and well. Surely, in the Cuban missile crisis he did the best a man in his position could do. He also spoke civilly and with worldly concern to his fellow citizens about common concerns. Wittgenstein’s reaction to the atomic bomb was rather different. Monk writes “In a curious sense he even welcomed the bomb” and he quotes Wittgenstein as saying: The hysterical fear over the atom bomb now being experienced, or at any rate expressed, by the public almost suggests that at last something really salutary has been invented. The fright at least gives the impression of a really effective bitter medicine. I can’t help thinking: if this didn’t have something good about it the philistines wouldn’t be making an outcry. But perhaps this too is a childish idea. Because really all I can mean is that the bomb offers a prospect of the end, the destruction, of an evil, – our disgusting soapy water science.... there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. (Monk 1990, p. 485)Monk goes on to remark, “Thus, his ‘dream’ of the coming collapse of science and industry was an anticipation of an age in which his type of thinking would be more generally accepted and understood. It is linked with his remark to Drury: ‘My type of thinking is not wanted in this present age ... Perhaps in a hundred years people will really want what I am writing.’” Toward the end of Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919) Russell committed one of his few deviations from standard philosophical prose, remarking that he would stress the ambiguity of the verb “to be” even if he were dead from the waist down and not “merely in prison.” Much latter, in his eighties, Russell was briefly jailed for his opposition to British possession of nuclear weapons. This led to an immortal cartoon in Punch in which we see gadfly Russell between two large bozos in prison uniform against a prison wall with a large hole in it. Surrounding them are several thick-headed policemen of whom one says “Now who’s the brains behind this?” Arrogantly “world-abandoning” Russell was not. Socratic philosopher he was. Philosophy Department University of Houston Houston TX 77004 jleiber@uh.edu Cavell, S.: 1962. ‘The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy’. Philosophical Review. 71, 67-93. Grenville, P.: 1955. The Prisoner. Directed by Peter Grenville; starring Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins. Monk, R.: 1990. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. New York: Penguin Books. Monk, R.: 1996. Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude 1872-1921. New York: Penguin Books. Monk, R.: 2000. Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970. New York: Free Press. Richards, I. A.: 1990. Selected Letters of I. A. Richards. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Waismann, F.: 1965. The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, ed. Rom Harré. London: Macmillan. Wittgenstein, L.: 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Wittgenstein, L.: 1953. Philosophical Investigations. New York: Macmillan. [*] An earlier draft of this paper was read at The Bertrand Russell Society session of the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, San Francisco, March 2003, with Professor David White commenting. [1] Monk 1990, p.290; Richards 1990, pp. 159-162 [2] Monk 1990, pp. 290-91 |