Thanks for the clarification of W's sisters situation.
The Monk bio is good, but I haven't read it in years. I like the story about why Sraffa stopped talking to W. (I actually met Sraffa in 1980-81.)
Analytical and Continental phil: My friend Brian Leiter, a Nietzsche scholar who is a law prof at Texas and who went to grad school with me at Michigan, thus receiving the analytical training I got, has a discussion of this on his website. He thinks that analytical training is the best preparation for reading Continental philosophy.
jks
--- james at communistbanker.com wrote:
> JKS: The ransom story doesn't sound right. W gave
> away his
> fortune, though it is unclear to me exactly when.
>
> JG: I've just looked at Ray Monk's excellent biog of
> W and he says
> that W discussed the situation with Sraffa and
> others and was
> persuaded not to rush to Austria until he was
> naturalised as a British
> citizen, in case he couldn't get back. While he was
> waiting, the
> family tried to escape to Switzerland on false
> passports, but were
> caught. They tried to bribe their way out of it
> using family money
> that was tied up in complex trusts. When LW got his
> passport, he
> went over to negotiate, and they were able to buy
> certificates of
> German blood using family money from Switzerland.
>
> Incidentally, in 1946 Sraffa decided to stop talking
> to W because it
> was too much hard work! W said that he would talk
> about anything, but
> Sraffa said, 'Yes, but in your way'!
>
> Monk treats the poker story very briefly, saying
> that no one agrees
> on what happened. Popper's version was that W was
> wielding a poker
> during a discussion, and stormed over to Popper with
> the poker and
> demanded an example of a moral rule. P said, 'Don't
> threaten
> visiting lecturers with a poker.' I like that
> version best.
>
> I really recommend the biog.
>
> JKS: If Aristotle isn't profound, I don't know what
> the word means.
> JG: I know Marx is not the measure of all things,
> but he cites
> Aristotle more than anyone else except Hegel.
>
> JKS: Anglo-American philosophy, so-called, prizes
> (but often fails to
> attain) clarity,precision, thoroughness, exactness,
> comprehensiveness and depth of argument -- the
> virtues Hegel would
> associate with the Understanding. This can be boring
> unless you get
> your head into that space.
> JG: I agree absolutely. I hated this stuff until I
> had the privilege
> of being in a reading group with a really good
> analytic philosopher.
> Yes, it can be dull and also often trivial, and it
> can foreclose on
> big questions. But I wish I'd had the formal
> training - it is, I think,
> a much better preparation than jumping into
> continental stuff.
>
> John Bizwas: "I think that both currents have wound
> up in a period of
> deep skepticism over rationality."
> JG: Yes, and this is the crux, I think. As John has
> pointed out, the
> differences are not as great as those involved think
> they are.
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