The last thing W wanted ro be was a major philosopher. The point of his whole later work was to "shew (Brit sp.) the fly the way out of the fly bottle," and reveal that philosophy was a sort of mistake. Of course, if he felt that way he might just have stopped doing philosophy and done something else, as did Marx, who had a Feuerbachian contempt for philosophy. But W seemed to be unable to do that. It was an itch he could not help scratching, must to his unhappiness and frustration.
I wonder if Malcolm is right, though, that no "major philosopher" between Marx and W adopted a form of class politics. Russell was a vigorous and outspoken socialist -- anti-Bolshevik after his 1920 visit to Russia, but pretty hot pink. And while Russel is no major social philosopher, he's a heavyweight in philosophy of math, language, and metaphusics and epistemology. W was no bigshot social philosopher either. So was Ayer, though may not count as a "major philosopher." And at various times on thsi list we have discussed the Marxist-tinged radicalism of the early Vienna circle. Only Neurath (not a "major philosopher," but an important one) called himself a Marxist, but Carnap was pretty red, even later in life when he came to the US, and certainly in Vienna; he may not be as "major" as Russell or W, but he's a player. If I thought more, I could probably generate more examples. And the class politics of all these figures aws not "very weak." --- Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Wittgenstein.htm > > > > "Rhees and Monk record the many sympathetic remarks > Wittgenstein made about > Marxism, about workers and about revolutionary > activity. While these are not > in themselves models of 'orthodoxy', they reveal how > close Wittgenstein came > to adopting a very weak form of class politics in > the 1930's -- certainly > closer than any other major philosopher had done > since Marx himself; cf., > Rhees (1984), pp.205-09. [Cf., also Norman Malcolm's > Introduction to Rhees's > book, pp.xvii-xviii, and Monk (1990), pp.343-54.]" > > > ^^^^ > CB: If philosophy is mostly 2500 years of claptrap > for the bosses, why is it > to Wittgenstein's credit that he is a major > philosopher ? > > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
