--- uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> > > After reading the book Wittgenstein's Poker, one
> is
> > > not tempted to read Wittegenstein.:)
>
> > I haven't read W's Poker, is it any good?
>
> No, I didn't like it. As far as I remember, it sets
> up a contest between W and Popper; whether that
> contest was real or imaginary I can't say. But I
> thought Popper certainly appears more convincing of
> the two.
>
> Then, there is a question of W's understanding of
> nazism and the European politics of 30s and 40s.
> Wittgensteins were among the richest family in
> Vienna and W's sisters were trapped in Vienna after
> Nazi coquest of Austria. W apparently saved them
> after paying a huge ransom to Nazis. His philosophy
> doesn't seem to have offered him any understanding
> of that period.
The ransom story doesn't sound right. W gave away his fortune, though it is unclear to me exactly when. Here is from the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy:
The Wittgenstein family was large and wealthy. Karl Wittgenstein was one of the most successful businessmen in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, leading the iron and steel industry there. . . . . When his father died in 1913 Wittgenstein inherited a fortune, which he quickly gave away
Here's another site that gives a 1919 date: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Wittgenstein.html
Wittgenstein's intention was now to give up his study of the subject. Released from detention in 1919, he gave away the family fortune he had inherited and, in the following year, trained as a primary school teacher in Austria.
I think that is correct.
Googling on
Wittgenstein ransom sisters
turns up nothing.
Anyway, W was not a political theorist, true, although he was apparently personally attracted to Communism theoretically. He was a friend of the Marxist (Stalinist_ neo-Ricardan economist Piero Sraffa, whom he acknowledges in the preface to the Investigations. But if the criterion for philosophical interest is topical political commentary, W flunks that test. Read, I dunno, Sartre. Heidegger. Merleau-Ponty (but not his best work). If you want profound reflection on mind, language, logic, and even society in broad sense -- W's lifelong preoccupation was the nature of rule-following behavior -- he's your guy.
Popper is a lot more accessible. I rather like him. I lobbied my phil of science prof to include him in the course. He's important, Popper, that is. He did topical commentary from the Hayekian right -- he and Hayek were pretty close, I think. He attacked Marx (intelligently) and Hegel (uncomprehendingly) as totalitarians. But that isn't his best work either, which is on the pure philosophy of science. None of his work approaches W's is depth or significance.
jks
jks
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