On Thu, 7 Feb 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > The book sets up such a neat dichotomy between the two men that one wonders > if things were so simple but what I took away was that W was so other worldly > that moral problems simply did not interest him. He was incapable of engaging > the world intellectually at that level or found it beneath his interest (not > out of contempt but out of true lack of interest).
I do recall the book mentioning that W. was outraged by Russell's willingness to dispense with religion and social convention. It would be interesting to compare Russell and Wittgenstein. They were peers or near-peers in terms of social class (Popper was hopelessly bourgeois, of course) but whereas Russell could use this to free himself from "common" morality (*), W. appeared to cling to social convention even while he tried to destroy the pillars of ordinary philosophy. (*) It's much harder to live unconventionally when you haven't much clout. Marvin Long Austin, Texas
