> On 4 Feb 2004, Alexander Nekvasil wrote:
>
> > Anyways, in the context of lbo-talk there are two
> > things one must know about Ludwig Wittgenstein.
> > First, he was the son of a very successful (and much
> > hated) corporate raider. Second, he was a
> > schoolmate of Adolf Hitler.
>
> Even in the context of lbo, these are two trivial
> things to know about Wittgenstein. If I had to pick
> two things to know about Wittgenstein:
>
> 1. The "picture theory" of language and reality
> advocated in Tractatus
> 2. The related concepts "forms of life" and
> "language games" in his later work that led him
> to reject the picture theory in Tractatus
By "the context of lbo-talk" I did not mean a certain (especially not a certain low) level of erudition. Rather, that the interest in philosophers is not itself _philosophical_ but _historical_, which in Wittgensteins case poses questions like how a mysticism can arise amidst all this turmoil at the beginning of the last century, or how that mysticism relates to the crisis of Europe, the bourgeoisie, finance capital, the Habsburg empire, etc.
Language game analysis and other Wittgensteinian _trivia_ (in the original sense of "three ways": logic, grammar, and rhetoric) have that in common with certain other human activities that it's better to do them than just talk about them -- even if it's lbo-talk.
cheers AN