Talk:Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Whereof" translation

I just noticed SlimVirgin asking about the famous final proposition of the Tractus in the edit history. The translation that sounds slightly funny to many, but to my ear mellifluous, is from Ogden's 1922 translation (I think the first, and most widely read, English translatiou). You can find it online at: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - Hypertext of the Ogden bilingual edition

Proposition 7: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:57, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

You can translate it a number of ways, but that seems to be the well known one. "About which one cannot speak, one must be silent," etc. I might even like about which better personally because "Where" seems to imply a place. --Chadamir 16:24, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Nononono! "About that which one may not speak, one must shutup"! (or "If you don't know what you're talking about, keep your mouth shut.") Tomer ^TALK 06:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I was always taught to say: "Whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence." And W. would have agreed with Tomer, except he'd have said: "If it's in principle impossible for you to know what you're talking about, keep your mouth shut." ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:51, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Or maybe: If you're gonna talk the talk, you better walk the walk! :-) (I still stand by the claim that Ogden translated it as above, whichever way is actually best). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:09, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Or perhaps as that great philosopher my father would say "Better to be seen and not heard". Tomer ^TALK 10:36, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I've always liked Frank P. Ramsey's version: What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either which is nice in it's oblique refernce to Wittgenstein's famous talent for whistling classical music. Stumps 10:47, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hey! I have such a talent too! But my mom always characterized it as "annoying" rather than "famous"... Tomer ^TALK 10:53, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, the trick is to be an enigmatic logician and then have one of your American students write a book about his experiences with you which, amongst other things, mentions your affinity for note perfect whistling of classical music accompanied by running commentary (listen to this bit!) - then it will be "famous". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.232.243.176 (talk) 13:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

As for the translation of 'Whereof' you are all better off referring to the German. The words explicitly say 'pass over' so 'shut up!' is manifestly not a good rendering. As literal as possible it ought to be "Of what one can not speak, pass over it one must in silence" but that sounds clunky hence the familiar renderings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.232.243.176 (talk) 13:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sraffa

I'm going to add the economist Sraffa to the list of influences because (i) Wittgenstein recognizes him as such in the PI and (ii) Wittgenstein corresponded with Sraffa in addition to regularly talking with him and Ramsey at Cambridge.— Preceding unsigned comment added by JoelSCollier (talk • contribs) 03:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Erm, this is one of those things which depends on what wikipedia's conception of 'influence' is. Wittgenstein 1) was inspired to revise his Tractarian view of language by Straffa's chin-flick gesture (as well as extensive discussions with Ramsey) but 2) 'The economist Staffa' qua 'The economist Straffa' wasn't an influence; Wittgenstein didn't write on economics (though there might be a 'remark' here and there) and I seem to recall Monk or possibly Malcolm noting that they didn't actually agree politically, though Wittgenstein enjoyed discussing politics with him. So he was an influence as a person in so far as Wittgenstein spoke with him often and extensively, but wasn't as an academic himself as Wittgenstein wasn't influenced by any of his published intellectual positions and hence not influenced in the way one would mean if one said "Kant has been a major influence on my work". For that matter the same could be said of all Wittgenstein's close friends and associates; I notice Frank Skinner isn't listed as an 'influence', and they collaborated to the same extent as Wittgenstein.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.232.243.176 (talk) 13:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Kant I

Wittgenstein learned Kant's philosophy by reading Schopenhauer's Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy. Schopenhauer's account was extremely readable and provided an epitome or résumé of Kant's thought. Lestrade 13:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

The mere aquantance of Witt. with Kant isn't enought to count him as an influence, or at least an influence signifigant enough to be mentioned. Moreover, if Wittgenstein got his Kant through Schopenhauer, then Schopenhauer should be counted as the inluence just as I should count Kripke as the influence on me were I to read Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. I found it surprising that someone would count Kant as an influence and I think a better defence is in order. JoelSCollier 03:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Uhh, two words: transcendental self. Ernham 14:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't cut it I'm afraid; Kant isn't the only writer to discuss the transcendental and Schopenhauer's metaphysics discusses Kant's perspective. There is no evidence that Wittgenstein ever read Kant. This is important. Kant should not be listed as an influence. This is important. It is a topic of considerable scholarly interest at the moment as some of the cutting edge work on the Tractatus involves the connection between Tractarian metaphysics and Kantian metaphysics (an argument being that Wittgenstein goes to some lengths to avoid a noumenal/phenomenal split. 128.232.243.176 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

James

I believe William James should be listed as an influence, and perhaps something short written about Wittgenstein's reading of James -- from 1912 when he picks up James's Varieties of Religious Experience to its influence in his later ideas.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmistler (talk • contribs) 10:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm really not sure influence should be understood to mean 'people Wittgenstein read'. While that would be a short list, there is no evience that Wittgenstein was influenced by James (in the standard meaning of that word; his work wasn't shaped by it). Unless you care to disagree; I'm not an expert on On Certainty.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.232.243.176 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Russel?

Why is Russel listed both in Influences and Influenced?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.226.246.81 (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Wittgenstein read, studied under, and was influenced by Russell's Principles of Mathematics. When Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus, Russell himself admits, in the introduction to the Tractatus, that he is immensely impressed by the work, and subsequently Russell revised his work based on the Tractatus.

From Bertrand Russell's bio: Russell's influence on individual philosophers is singular, and perhaps most notably in the case of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was his student between 1911 and 1914. It should also be observed that Wittgenstein exerted considerable influence on Russell, especially in leading him to conclude, much to his regret, that mathematical truths were trivial, tautological truths. Evidence of Russell's influence on Wittgenstein can be seen throughout the Tractatus, which Russell was responsible for having published. Russell also helped to secure Wittgenstein's doctorate and a faculty position at Cambridge, along with several fellowships along the way. However, as previously stated, he came to disagree with Wittgenstein's later approach to philosophy, while Wittgenstein came to think of Russell as "superficial and glib," particularly in his popular writings

Cheers! Yorick, Jester of Elsinore 14:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

For that matter, Ramsey should ideally be listed under both influenced by and influenced as it was his discussions with W. more than anyone elses (arguably) that led to the Philosophical Investigations. 128.232.243.176 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Zip It

We can't speak about anything that we haven't experienced. Has anyone experienced the witnessing of Wittgy's sexual activities? Has Wittgy publicly described his sexual activities? If not, what is all this talk about his liaisons and preferences?

It seems to me that there is an inverse relationship between interest in Wittgy's mental ideas and his physical acts. The less that someone is interested in what he wrote, the more they are interested in what he did.Lestrade 14:02, 31 December 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

Whether there is an inverse relationship or not between one's interest in substance and one's interest in personal life is neither here nor there. The articles in Wikipedia always have a section on "Life" or "Life and Times." With Ludwig especially, the issue of his sexual orientation is significant because of the unusually strong response from his hysterical executors (Ms. Anscombe, Rush Rhees) when W. W. Bartley III published his book on Wittgenstein's philosophy, which contained a small section (including photographs) on W's sexual orientation which is, by now, well documented. Admittedly, this area should comprise a small part of the article, but it should certainly be mentioned. Do you object to the section on "Einstein" concerning his marriage? NYCSEAN

Since no one was in LW's bedroom to witness such activities, we must consider all judgments about his sexual orientation as mere hearsay and gossip. He never made any public declarations regarding this topic. There was a time, you know, when people had friends who were not necessarily sexual partners. LW had deep friendships with several people, male and female. Activist homosexuals today are simply trying to legitimize themselves by claiming famous people as belonging to their ranks.Lestrade 01:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Uh huh. Would you classify Ray Monk as an 'activist homosexual'? Look, it's not really a matter that's up for discussion; Wikipedia functions as an aggregator for mainstream knowledge and research. One of the best known and best regarded Wittgenstein biographers, the only - to my knowledge - one to write about the coded messages in W's diary, considers it pretty much uncontrovertible that W had a number of male acquaintances which he had sexual interest in. Whether he was ever physically involved is a matter of debate, as W is so coy about it, but it's not for wikipedian's to censor as Monk is pretty positive and other biographers avoid it (so you could say there is a 'scholarly consensus'). I have Monk's biography within reach at present and can cite you the relevant passages if you wish, but I'd pay particular attention to W's infatuation with a friend of Skinner whom he was tutoring in physics (the name escapes me); it is hard to see what other interpretation could be offered than a homosexual inclination. I don't know to what extent 'activist homosexuals' are a problem but Wittgenstein despite being nigh on asexual seems incontrovertibly to have been homosexually inclined. 128.232.243.176 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

header/bio summary

I think this article ties the life and work of LW too tightly, so the reader has to go through the detailed discussion of LW's philosophy to get a grip of LW's life. I think it would be a welcome improvement to edit the header and give the basics of W's birth and death, schooling and positions (Linz, Berlin, Cambridge), and then discuss LW's philosophy as much as you please in the article's body.

In the section "The Philosophical Investigations", it is said that Wittgenstein's "later philosophy" broke radically from the philosophy of the Tractatus in its view of the task of philosophy. This is a claim that I remember being made by published commentators that I read as an undergraduate student, 30 years ago, and I can't see it now any more than I could then. But this section makes the claim seem particularly hard to sustain; it is ironic that the particular example concerning The Good and The Beautiful are cited, as Wittgenstein refers specifically to this example in Tractatus 4.003, where he says "Most propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical matters are not false, but senseless.".

I'm reluctant to edit, as I haven't studied Wittgenstein (or any kind of western philosophy) for a very long time, and only turned up this page after stumbling on an online Tractatus earlier today. And anyway, I'd *really* appreciate an attempt by a proponent of the earlier/later school of Wittgenstein criticism to make clearer in which ways the later Wittgenstein repudiated (rather than revised) the philosophy of the Tractatus. MrDemeanour 14:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The foremost (to my knowledge) living proponent would be PMS Hacker; anything written by him you may consider orthodoxy. The basic claim is that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein derived his whole system from his understanding that language was supposed to make claims about the world and that a language which made claims about the world would logicially have to be of a certain form (that form being what you get if you mix certain bits of Russell - namely the analysis of complex statements so they can only be falsified in a single way - with certain bits of Frege), anything not of this form was a sort of nonsense and this included most of what philosophers want to say including what the Tractatus says (so the ladder must be thrown away once you climb up it). In the move to the investigations Wittgenstein realised that this picture of language was incorrect and that language 1) is about social communication, 2) often doesn't take the form of propositions at all and 3) comes in a variety of non-surface forms depending on what one wants to do with what one is saying. However (I understand this to be the orthodox view, it's certainly my view) Wittgenstein wanted to preserve much of his philosophical-theory scepticism from the Tractatus so introduced the passages on meaning scepticism (which might be interpreted as saying: if language isn't as it is in the Tractatus then determinate meaning isn't obtainable) and the private language argument to get rid of psychology (which if you consider the remarks made in... 6. in the Tractatus I think it is, he seems to have had a baffling antagonism towards, though this might be less baffling if we consider 'psychology' to mean Freud, so whether he'd have the same misgivings about empirical psychology is questionable). The remarks on the philosophy of psychology towards the end always struck me as being a different book altogether; it's not clear he has the same ends. Crucially there is a radical difference in method between the two books. That's the conventional view, the New Wittgenstein reading view stresses the similarity of the Tractatus to the Investigations in the intent behind it. Some have argued in my presence that the Tractatus is to be understood as a kind of 'paradoy' of traditional philosophy of language (and W doesn't mean it at all). I can understand the motivations for taking this reading, but it just seems plain wrong to me and seems the sort of reading you could only come up with if you don't pay enough attention to W's biography (especially his admiration for Frege). 128.232.243.176 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Kant II

What evidence is there of a significant influence on Wittgenstein from Kant? According to his biographers, he read very little historical philosophy. Transcendentalism? Doesn't sound right. Banno 19:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any working knowledge of philosophy and/or transcendentalism? (or Kant or.... Wittgenstein?)It seems rather unlkley given your comment. Edit: though the use of Transcendentalism can be confused for tangently related things. "Transcendentality" is more clear, but there shouldn't be any confusion on what is Kantian.Ernham 19:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wittg never read Kant. He learned about Kant from reading Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy.Lestrade (talk) 01:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Despite one's natural unease at Ernham's insulting tone, there yet remains the specific reference to Kant (and mention of his name) in Tractatus 6.36111, concerning Kant's problem about the left hand and the right hand that are incongruent to each other despite their internal relational identity. Granted this is not proof that Wittgenstein READ Kant, but equally the assertion "Wittg never read Kant" needs some support beyond the mere assertion. Bernard Williams, in the Rotal Institute of Philosophy volume devoted to Wittgenstein, claimed that the Tractatus contained a "transcendental deduction". He might have been completely wrong, of course, but Williams was a philosopher whose opinions were always worth listening to.122.107.219.113 (talk) 04:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

There is certainly some merit to this discussion. In the writings later published as 'Culture and Value', W. does refer to Kant, saying that something he (W.) had just written "has to do with the Kantian solution to the problem of philosophy" (pg. 10, Chicago University Press edition). To me this says that he has at least read SOME kind, and not just gotten it all second-hand. Actually it seems W. read more historical philosophy than he is often given credit for, and this seems apparent both in his remarks (he mentions Platonic dialogues several times in the Investigations and Culture and Value), and in memoirs written about him. He certainly wasn't familiar with everything, but to say he read 'very little' historical philosophy is a bit of a stretch. Enigma00 (talk) 07:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

"He took much of the framework of the Tractatus from Kant through Schopenhauer, whom he had read and admired…." David Pears, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Penguin Books, page 40.Lestrade (talk) 21:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Photograph

Anyone know where the photograph of W. went? I'm assuming that it got turfed because of a copyright issue, but I don't see anything in the page history.

The next thing I wonder about is if there even ARE any photographs of Wittgenstein that are fair-use. I know certain websites have gotten into trouble over using certain photos, so I'm not sure what we should do.

Anyone? Enigma00 05:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks to me like it was removed by mistake; I have readded it. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 16:52, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks! Enigma00 (talk) 04:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Once again folks, we are out of a photograph. Can this be fixed? It seems the problem had to do with copyright, but it seems to me the only issue was because the person who uploaded the photo did not give a fair-use rationale. If we do this we should be okay to use the one we had. If I am wrong, someone please correct me. Enigma00 (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess I could temporarily restore it for the purpose of adding a FUR, then editors could list it at IfD if they contest it. Alternatively, we could take it to DRV and discuss the merits of a (hypothetical) FUR there. It would have been nice if a message were posted here that a FUR was needed. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 20:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Lead

If I read the FAR correctly, the short the lead was one important criticism.

In my not so humble opinion, the info box is too long, and infoboxes on biographies are an abomination anyway. Why not get rid of the infobox and add the information not yet covered as prose to the lead?

--Pjacobi (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd oppose getting rid of the infobox completely, but I agree that it's gotten too long. It's certainly true that Wittgenstein had many a number of notable influences and influenced many notable people, but I think shorter lists in those areas would be more useful. I think "notable ideas" could be more clear and succinct, and perhaps we should get rid of the "early/later" business -- I think there is some contrast, but I don't think it's that important. There are also some minor redundancies in the Interests field. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 20:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the infoboxes are on every single philosopher page, so I'm not sure we can just decide to get rid of the one of W.'s page without rocking the boat a bit. But I'm in agreement that it should be gone. I can definitely make shorter the "influenced" field, as many of those listed are far from Wittgensteinian. I don't think we should get rid of the early/later distinction, though. You say you don't think it's that important, but the contrast between his early and later work is large and quite important. But I'll see what I can do. As for the lead, what should be added? Enigma00 (talk) 07:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think to some degree the contrast is significant, as one could say of most philosophers... but there are only ~25 words to work with, so we really have to give up comprehensiveness. Glad you're willing to trim some of the "influenced" items. I was thinking we could at least get rid of neopragmatism/Rorty and Dennet? Not sure about Davidson? And quietism I'm unfamiliar with.... — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 10:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You might be right; though I am sceptical of the possibility of trimming down the 'notable ideas' to one or two that apply to both periods. Actually I think we might want to include only his later notable ideas. But really, I think the problem is with the existence of the infobox. As for trimming the 'influenced' field, Dennett and Davidson can go, as can quietism and neopragmatism. I'm not sure about Rorty - some of his work did have a Wittgensteinian flair. And Kripke is debatable. He did write a book prompted by W.'s thought, but it is widely thought to be a huge misinterpretation of W.'s remarks, and the references he makes to W. in 'Naming and Necessity' are either to criticize or are used as jumping off points for discussion. Given those facts, and that Kripke is in no sense a 'Wittgensteinian' philosopher, I propose removing him too. The problem is really what constitutes 'influence'; people like Descartes, Kant, Hume, Wittgenstein, etc, can be said to influence almost any philosopher you choose because their impact was so huge. In a sense they impacted analytic philosophy as a whole, and in W.'s case the Vienna circle and positivism as well as 'ordinary language philosophy'. This is why if we must keep the 'influenced' field, I propose that for W. we restrict it to the three above-mentioned schools, plus all those major philosophers who were either his students (Anscombe, Rhees, Malcolm, etc) or can be described as 'Wittgensteinian' (Hacker, etc). Enigma00 (talk) 19:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I see your point with regard to the ambiguity. I trimmed the clear candidates off the list, but feel free to continue the job as you see fit -- I think you know better than me, at least with regard to Rorty/Kripke. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 23:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed Kripke, given my last comments, and Ayer, and included instead Logical Positivism. I also added Rush Rhees and D.Z. Phillips. I realize that these additions make the section as long as it was before, but this time at least I feel it is ACCURATE. We can probably lose a couple if we have to, but let me know what you think. Additionally, I removed Spinoza from the Influences field, because apart from being the inspiration for G.E. Moore's suggested title for the English version of the Tractatus, I can't see how he might have influenced W. And finally, I changed the Notable Ideas field by removing the reference to early and later, the text we had under 'early', and putting instead something about his general conception of philosophy, viz. that its 'problems' arise due to misuse of language. This applied to both eras of his work. However I have also kept the references to "meaning as use" and the private language argument, as they are, I think, his most-cited major ideas. Obviously I'm open to revising all I've changed. Enigma00 (talk) 03:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: I had second thoughts about Rorty; he's gone now too. Enigma00 (talk) 03:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks good; nice work. I think it's a reasonable size now. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 05:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Er, no. Sorry, but I suggest you read the lead section guidelines (what seems worse is that it appears to have been shorter while an FA. People just don't get lead sections...) Richard001 (talk) 09:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wittgenstein in Moscow in 1939

The fully referenced note that Wittgenstein went from Berlin to Moscow in 1939 was reverted by Dannylost without any discussion whatever. Should Dannylost (or anyone!) have any reasons to justify the reversion, please discuss it here. Should nothing be forthcoming, I will put it back in a week. The edit also gave the 2008 value of the gold paid to the Reichsbank by the Wittgenstein family in 1939 as over US$50,000,000. This was also changed with no justification, despite the fact that the figure is correct. Editors should perhaps be a little more zealous in putting comments on the discussion page before acting, I think.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.219.113 (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't notice the monetary details. They should be put back. (BTW, the section jumps from one topic to another much too often. It's confusing, and details such as the gold's worth should rather be moved to footnotes.)

However referenced, I don't see any point to mention his visit to Moscow. Other travels written about in the paragraph are all related to the highly relevant issue, namely the efforts he made to save his family. This is not a fancy userpage, and not every country W visited should be mentioned. The fact is you didn't have anything more interesting to say about the visit, than that someone recalled it.

Regarding zealousness, I simply try to be bold, and get my intentions clear before entering long debates. The alternative is trying hard not to offense anyone, and having nothing get done in the end. In the same manner, you shouldn't wait a full week. I think most wikipedians prefer solving an issue and moving on, over following discussions that are being dragged for days or weeks.

Hope I haven't missed anything, trespassers william (talk) 13:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not a fancy userpage, and not every country W visited should be mentioned. Why not? This is an encyclopedia. It communicates information. Where do we draw the line as to what information constitutes "fancy" information? Information that is trivial or unimportant to one person may be of great interest to another person. My friend Holmes demonstrated this on many occasions. Lestrade (talk) 15:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Tough one.

a. From the top of my mind: Information that is either built into an already represented subtopic in a relevant way, or comes in a well structured original chunk of its own. The Moscow fact may very well turn out to be relevant if info will be added about a way it influenced W's life or work, or even his family's.

b. WP should always be interesting at least to a distinct significant minority of readers. Because, you know, many come here to acquire general education. Anyone whose wish is to explore obscure details about W would rather turn to more comprehensive resources, simply because it is quite a hard work, writing them all down.

c. Turning to the policies, I found three possible backups for my position. from WP:NOT "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." From Wikipedia:The perfect article: "is of an appropriate length; it is long enough to provide sufficient information, depth, and analysis on its subject, without including unnecessary detail or information that would be more suitable in "sub-articles", related articles, or sister projects." and "reflects expert knowledge; it is grounded in fact and on sound scholarly and logical principles."

d. The last one brought me to some more speculation. Encyclopedic articles require a certain degree of reading comprehension. When isolated, a sentence should excite a "So What?", and yet be understood in light of the rest of the paragraph, and of course paragraphs should be written to allow this. Perhaps the only statements that are understandable, to an extent, independently of the subject matter, should be the introductory and explanatory ones, those that can guide a reader why any topic is important when it is not self-evidently so.

I can see I haven't answered very clearly (and overstressed your Why?). I hope these are helpful thumb rules anyway. trespassers william (talk) 19:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Those, like Dannylost, ignorant of the controversy surrounding Wittgenstein's relation to Russia should read the Wikipedia article "The Jew of Linz" on my book of the same name. Antony Flew (emeritus professor of Philosophy, University of Reading) has publicly stated that he was convinced by the book's arguments that Wittgenstein was the Trinity College don who recruited Blunt, Burgess, Philby and Maclean for the Comintern. It is therefore of enormous interest that Wittgenstein was in Moscow only weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland and immediately prior to the family payment of US$50,000,000 to the Reichsbank. These issues are documented in Moran's article and in the book "Wittgenstein's Poker", yet shied away from by Wittgenstein's hagiographic biographers. It is quite certain that had the British government known of the intention to pay Hitler US$50,000,000, that British citizenship would never have been granted to Wittgenstein. (Had the transfer been effected only weeks later, Wittgenstein would have faced hanging on a charge of aiding and abetting an enemy state in time of war.) This is not a small matter. It certainly ought to have been explicitly mentioned in any Wittgenstein biography, and is surely worth a few words in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberley Cornish (talk • contribs) 23:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It is indeed interesting, then. However, if you want to claim something, claim it. Collect the relevant facts and write a paragraph about it, stating the claim clearly. Make it easier for readers to judge the claims, and for editors to improve and add upon them. Don't bother passing readers of remote sections with scattered facts, that might not add up for them when they browse away. (Of course, it can be made summarily and refer the reader to the book's article for the detailed theory.) trespassers william (talk) 00:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I could never understand why Wikipedia has so much room in its articles for information about references to popular culture, but is stingy about including genuine information. Is Wikipedia appealing to the MTV set by its willingness to fill articles about whether someone was mentioned in the film "The Matrix" or in a rap song by "50 Cent"? A few words about the fact that Wittgy was in Moscow in 1939 raises howls of protest, though. Youth must be served.Lestrade (talk) 01:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Upon reading the article that was listed as a reference for W. being in Russia in 1939, I wasn't convinced. The relevant passage: "Mrs Gornstein said, according to Drobnitsky, that Wittgenstein made a second trip to Moscow in 1939, when he still wanted to live and work in the USSR. She learned of this trip from Sophia Janovskaya, whom he visited." This is third-hand information, which I don't think is documented anywhere else. If we have any OTHER, confirming, more reliable evidence that W. was in Russia in 1939, let's see it, but at the moment I think it's far from widely acknowledged, and this article doesn't do much to rule out my doubts. Enigma00 (talk) 02:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The issue here is not whether the worthy Enigma00 is personally convinced, but whether the edit is soundly referenced to a reputable academic source. Moran's article is the source of of all academic work on Wittgenstein's 1930s involvement with the Soviet Union and his article is referenced in Monk's now standard Wittgenstein biography "Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius". (p.643. of Monk's "Select Biography" - neophyte Wittgensteinians might peruse the other names that Monk includes in this to glean some idea of Moran's importance here.) Moran is a well known academic, whose 1973 book on the Tractatus was considered worthy of six pages in the "Philosophical Review" (Vol. 84, No. 4 Oct 1975, pp. 570-575), a review in "The Philosophical Quarterly" (Vol.25, no.98. Jan. 1975, pp.84-5,) and elsewhere. He researched Wittgenstein's visits to the Soviet Union and obtained the personal testimony of members of the Soviet Academy of Science. (This is somewhat different from hearsay.) His paper spawned a minor academic industry in the 1970s. What he wrote about Wittgenstein and the result of his researches into Wittgenstein's visits is clearly important. Now in contrast to Enigma00, the "talk" page shows that other people are convinced that the issue matters and should be in Wikipedia. Accordingly - and bearing in mind the status of Moran as a reputable writer - I intend to revert back to my original after allowing a week for discussion. I suggest that should any editor disagree with this, that he/she should provide reasons for obliterating mention of Moran's researches so that we can then seek third party Wikipedia adjudication on whether such obliteration is reasonable.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 09:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This is rather tangential to the argument, but as the above commentator brought it up "Moran is a well known academic, whose 1973 book on the Tractatus was considered worthy of six pages in the "Philosophical Review" (Vol. 84, No. 4 Oct 1975, pp. 570-575), a review in "The Philosophical Quarterly" (Vol.25, no.98. Jan. 1975, pp.84-5,)" - I'm not sure what the definition of 'well known academic is', but the cited articles hardly count in favour of the point you are making. I don't know if you have access to JSTOR or not but if you do you'll notice that Goldstein's review in PQ is at best balanced (noting some interesting citations from the notebooks but finding fault with the central line of argument) whereas Stine's review in PR is overwhelmingly negative. It's hardly proof of an academic's standing to cite reviews which call their research into question. 128.232.243.176 (talk) 18:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I never called into question the author's credentials, nor his importance. All I'm saying is that if the ONLY source we have for W. being in Russia in 1939 is this third-hand information from a single paragraph in one article, that's pretty scant evidence. Your argument misses the point entirely; you deflect criticism about the strength of the evidence by referring instead to the reputation of the writer and his work. My point is, for such a grand claim (that is not attested elsewhere), we should like to have some grand evidence, better than a third-hand account. I'm not accusing anyone of being dishonest, I'm only pointing out that memory is fallible and that things get distorted when they don't come from the source. It is worth noting that other testimony from the article is surely mistaken (such as one Soviet philosopher's impression that W. was interested in dialectical materialism and was well versed in the history of Soviet philosophy; there is no textual evidence of this in the W. corpus, no second-hand accounts of this from his students and friends), as Monk points out in his book. It is also worth noting that the only reason Mr. Cornish is keen to have this information added is to serve certain academic vanities of his own, namely his widely discredited work 'The Jew of Linz'. Enigma00 (talk) 18:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately I am in a position to correct Enigma00 when he asserts that I want to have the information added "to serve certain academic vanities" of my own. I hereby inform him that this is not so. I trust that as a gentleman, he will therefore accept my correction, behave as a gentleman should and apologize. That is a matter for him. Now, on his claim that my work on Wittgenstein is "widely discredited" I simply point out that various of its arguments have been accepted by Antony Flew, Laurence Goldstein, Martin Gilbert and other well-known academic philosophers and historians. Flew's comment is quoted in the Wikipedia article "The Jew of Linz" and readers can peruse it at their leisure. The arguments of "The Jew of Linz", that is to say, are not "widely discredited" at all, though Enigma00 might better have expressed himself by writing (correctly) that they are not yet "widely accepted". This being a discussion page, I shall now turn to the matter of of how what I think is an important reference might be worded in a manner acceptable to Enigma00. I suggest that the entry might read something like "John Moran, who first reported that Wittgenstein had visited Russia in 1935, also quotes a Russian informant who states he was in Moscow in 1939 (following the Berlin negotiations) where he met the Soviet philosopher/academician Sophia Janowskaya a second time." Worded so, the comment is true and Janowskaya being the woman Stalin entrusted with translation of Marx' logical writings, the matter is philosophically relevant.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 04:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Setting aside polemical matters (for I have no wish to argue again about your work and/or its credibility/acceptability/etc.), I suppose we ought to come to the heart of the issue; why include this information at all? I quote trespassers william, who wrote above: "However referenced, I don't see any point to mention his visit to Moscow. Other travels written about in the paragraph are all related to the highly relevant issue, namely the efforts he made to save his family." As what you want added to the article doesn't really fit in in that context, I would suggest that it is an inappropriate place to put it (assuming we ought to include it at all). Mr. Cornish and I have disagreed before (and I will admit being in the wrong on more than one occasion), so I think we should have some other viewpoints in this discussion. I propose we ought to answer the following questions: 1) Is this information reliable; that is, is this one source, as it is, enough to warrant us thinking what it asserts is true? 2)If it is, is it necessary to include in the article? and 3) If we are going to include it, then where, since it doesn't seem to fit in where Mr. Cornish first put it? I think it's obvious where I stand, but I don't want to monopolize the discussion, nor do I want this to simply become a two-man battle that gets nowhere. Enigma00 (talk) 04:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the civilised response. Let me state why the Moran report matters. You wrote that testimony from Moran's article "is surely mistaken (such as one Soviet philosopher's impression that W. was interested in dialectical materialism and was well versed in the history of Soviet philosophy; there is no textual evidence of this in the W. corpus, no second-hand accounts of this from his students and friends." Quite to the contrary, PI 284 contains a phrase about "the transition from quantity to quality" that is the very purest Engels. W's Preface atributes the most consequential ideas of the Investigations to Piero Sraffa, who was not only Cambridge's most eminent Marxist economist, but a mole for Stalin. (Reference in John Costello's "Mask of Treachery" which I do not have to hand.) His friend Roy Pascal translated Marx's "German Ideology" into English. His Communist friends and/or students included Maurice Dobb, Nicholas Bakhtin, George Thomson, Maurice Cornforth, David Hayden-Guest, Julian Bell, all of whom were Party members. (Monk, pp.340-54) and some of whom (Cornforth, Bell) wrote of W's influence on them. Rush Rhees was a Marxist, albeit of Trotskyite persuasion. (Rhees “Recollections of Wittgenstein”, pp.200-09) Monk records George Thomson as saying that Wittgenstein “supported Communism in practice” and Monk reports Wittgenstein saying "I am a communist, at heart" (Monk, p.343). Both Douglas Gasking and A. C. Jackson who were former communist students of Wittgenstein’s (and who ended up in the Chairs of Philosophy at Melbourne University and Monash University) told me personally that when they knew him, “Wittgenstein was a Stalinist”. (Monk reports that “some of his students” mentioned Wittgenstein’s Stalinism, but it was Gasking and Jackson - at one stage the most eminent philosophers in Australia – who made the remarks Monk mentions.) Fania Pascal reports that Wittgenstein read Marx (Rhees, “Recollections of Wittgenstein, p.44.) Rosa Lichtenstein has extended my own researches on Wittgenstein’s politics, writing “when Wittgenstein visited Russia he met Sophia Yanovskaya, who was Professor of Mathematical Logic at Moscow University and one of the co-editors of Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts. [Cf., Yanovskaya (1983), in Marx (1983).] She apparently advised him to "read more Hegel" (which suggests he had already read some). [Monk (1990), p.351, and Rhees (1984), p.209.] In fact, Yanovskaya even went as far as to recommend Wittgenstein for the chair at Kazan University (Lenin's old college) and for a teaching post at Moscow University (Monk (1990), p. 351). These were hardly posts one would have offered to just anyone in Stalin's Russia in the mid-1930's, least of all to one not sympathetic to Communism”. Keynes’ letter to Maisky, the Russian ambassador stated that Wittgenstein “has strong sympathies with the way of life which he believes the new regime in Russia stands for." [John Maynard Keynes to Maisky, quoted in Rhees, p.199, also quoted more fully in Monk (1990), p.349.] Alan Turing wrote that Wittgenstein “was trying to introduce "Bolshevism" into Mathematics”. Monk (1990), pp.419-20; see also Hodges (1983), pp.152-54.] In short, Wittgenstein is reasonably suspected (from even the Sraffa Preface acknowledgement alone) of being seriously influenced by Marxism, whether through direct reading or via his friends/students. Any meeting with Yanowskaya (as editor of Marx's works) whether in 1935 or in 1939, is therefore of biographical interest, provided it is properly referenced. Where the reference should go is certainly up for discussion. Over to you ... Kimberley Cornish (talk) 05:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There is so much to reply to here, and I haven't had time recently and I may not have time for a little while yet. Suffice to say, I think that all of the above can be either refuted or (better) explained in a way that doesn't get you want you want. But then, of course, we get back into a debate about that which we said we wouldn't touch - your work and its whole thesis re: Wittgenstein. I fear it's quite unavoidable at this point, and it's a war that isn't likely to be won by either side, because you're not going to give up what you've written about and I'm not going to accept your points because I think the mass of scholarship is against you. But if I must, I will come back and tell what I think of all the points you made above. Enigma00 (talk) 07:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You write about the debate "we said we wouldn't touch". Let me note, with a very raised eyebrow, that I said no such thing. Now, on your reply, it's rather hard to refute the fact that Wittgenstein's students described him as a "Stalinist" unless you want to claim that Monk's standard biography (p.354) is in error or that Gasking and Jackson were lying. Or should you take the "better" explanatory tack, I'd be very interested to see how you might try to explain away as harmless the significance of the "Stalinist" description. The 1935 recommendations of Wittgenstein to multiple high Soviet academic posts also seems damning on the face of it. I'd like to see your refutation of it. (Rather hard, methinks, unless Monk, Fania Pascal and Moran are again to be called into question!) Alternatively, on the other, "better", tack, let us see how you can explain it away as innocent, given that Yanovskaya was one of Stalin's "Red Professors" charged with with ideological supervision. (A good account of the ensuing murders is provided by Michael S. Fox in "Political Culture, Purges, and Proletarianization at the Institute of Red Professors, 1921-1929", Russian Review, Vol. 52, No. 1 Jan., 1993, pp. 20-42.) The purge at Kazan by the way, had already stated in February 1935 with the arrest of Professor Elvov PRIOR to her recommendation of Wittgenstein to the Chair and is detailed in Evgeniya Ginzburg's "Into the Whirlwind" (Collins, London 1967.) Ginzburg's book makes harrowing reading, with the female prisoners having to stop their ears at night to muffle the screams of prisoners - mainly arrested academics - being tortured every night by NKVD interrogators. (Ginzburg, p.122.) Yanovskaya had to watch her p's and q's about recommendations for professorial appointments or face torture and forced labour (like Ginzberg, for 18 years) herself. (The fact that Yanovskaya survived the Great Purge and the endless post war academic purges is evidence all by itself that she was a hardened apparatchik with blood on her hands.) If she recommended Wittgenstein, and he was politically unreliable, then her life was forfeit. (Ginzburg recounts some prisoners forced to "confess" by finger-nail extraction before they were shot.) So, yes, please either refute or explain away these and the other points I made. (After all, they were made in individual refutation of your own assertion about "there being no textual evidence" etc. and therefore demand a response. I stress that this has nothing to do with "where I am trying to get to"; merely with accuracy in disputation.) Finally, when you say that the "mass of scholarship" is against me, would you state specifically what reputable texts or journal articles you are referring to? Kimberley Cornish (talk) 06:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)Kimberley Cornish (talk) 09:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Enigma00's responses taking weeks (the original posting dating back to early January) I rather feel I should proceed with the suggested edit. (The thread had even been archived on the grounds that it was dead and only resurrected because it was a day short of the month's archive limit!) Contributors should surely try to make timely contributions. I note that Enigma00 did state that he was pressed for time, so I shall wait a day or two more.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 09:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Here it goes. 1. "the transition from quantity to quality" has absolutely nothing to do with Engels in context, nor is it clearly derived from Engels, in fact it seems merely to be a common idiom. W. did take influence from Sraffa, but nowhere does he say that he was influenced by Sraffa's economics, nor his communism. Sraffa simply had a very sharp mind, and provided excellent criticism. Additionally, the claim that Sraffa was a mole for Stalin is highly controversial and I can find no authoritative, academically reputable sources to back it up. That his friends were Marxists is of little consequence. And just because they said W. influenced them doesn't mean he influenced them in their Marxism. Rhees was in fact a Marxist, but in fact, Rhees notes in 'Recollections of Wittgenstien' that when he told W. he was planning to join a Trotskyist party, W. advised him against it because in philosophy one always had to keep an open mind, and being part of a political party would force one to tow the party line and not be as open minded as a philosopher ought to be. That W. felt a deep sympathy for the idea of communism is not disputed, but this is a far cry from saying he was a full-blooded Stalinist; indeed, much biographical material goes against this (I'm thinking especially of Malcolm's memoir), and nothing W. ever wrote bears this out. You would expect such things to be evident in his less philosophical writing, like those published in 'Culture and Value', but no such writing exists. That two former students called him a 'Stalinist' is certainly outweighed by the fact that all his other students make no mention of it, and that all the biographical material on him speaks nothing to that effect. You're comments about Gasking and Jackson are a clear instance of an unwarranted appeal to authority; just because they were prominent philosophers gives them no more status than anyone else on where W.'s political sympathies lied. I wouldn't be surprised if Wittgenstein read Marx; many intellectuals did. To be told to "read more Hegel" doesn't imply that he had read SOME; the expression "you need to read more X" is idiomatic and means that one ought to read X, because it's clear from conversation that one hasn't. 'Alan Turing wrote that Wittgenstein “was trying to introduce "Bolshevism" into Mathematics”'; I don't even know what this is supposed to mean, and Turing is hardly qualified to speak to W.'s political sympathies. Turing's remark sounds more like an insult than a comment on W.'s ideas. Finally, the only reason you mentioned all this was to show that since W. had an interest in Marxism, a meeting with Yanowskaya is 'of biographical interest'. But this was not the point at all. The point was whether he went to the USSR in 1939, and you have provided no evidence whatever (except the original article, which I disputed for good reasons) for this. Enigma00 (talk) 01:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

My advice to Enigma00 would be that if he wants to dispute it, he should write an article and submit it to a peer-reviewed journal to see if he really does have "good reasons", as opposed to merely thinking that he does. I, on the other hand, am simply quoting from an already published peer-reviewed article by John Moran, whose research first turned up the evidence of Wittgenstein's 1935 Soviet visit, and which is now universally accepted as correct by all Wittgenstein commentators without exception. Wittgenstein met the official Soviet translator of Marx's mathematical manuscripts certainly once, in 1935, and if Moran has correctly reported what he was told by members of the Soviet Academy of Science, probably twice. I think this is worth a mention. Enigma00 doesn't. Further disputation seems rather pointless, therefore, after three months, I'm adding it to the Wikipedia main article text. Anyone is free to add whatever qualifications they feel are reasonable. Here is what I am adding: "John Moran, who first reported that Wittgenstein had visited Russia in 1935, quotes a Soviet Academician who (on the basis of testimony to him by the Academician Tatiana Gornstein) says that Wittgenstein was also in Moscow in 1939 (following the Berlin negotiations) where he met the Soviet philosopher/academician Sophia Janowskaya a second time. Janowskaya was the official translator of Marx's mathematical manuscripts and (as a graduate of the Institute of Red Professors) responsible for ideological oversight of Soviet academics. She recommended Wittgenstein to the Chair in Philosophy at Kazan (which had been Lenin's university) and other high Soviet academic posts." Nobody, I think can point to anything false or unsupported in this.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 04:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's appropriate to suggest to Enigma that he should submit his research to a journal, because WP policy states that the burden is on the editor who wants to include material (i.e. in this case you) to show that the material is well sourced and worthy of inclusion. I've yet to make up my mind whether I think this should be included or not, but need to point out that the WP approach is that we must be guided by how our principal (secondary) sources deal with this material. From the discussion, I take it that Monk does not include this report, even though it was available to him? He must have had his reasons for that, and we should bear that in mind when we make our decisions. And did you include it in The Jew of Linz? If not, why not? You can call Monk's work "hagiography" as much as you like; it remains the standard biography and since it does not take a particular "line" on W's life whereas your book does, it should be given greater weight, while your viewpoint should also be represented. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I've shortened it to what I think is an appropriate length but it must have a complete reference asap or it has to go. Also the stuff about the amount of gold must be cited to the E&E book, not to the very brief mention in a review of the book. Also urgent. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I can live with what it's been shortened to, provided the (I think still questionable) reference is added. But I am also committed to the idea that the biography section is currently cluttered and a bit confused, and this certainly does nothing to remedy that. Enigma00 (talk) 16:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

To Itsmejudith: My shortness to Enigma00 was an expression of irritability over discussion responses taking a month and a feeling that he is unfamiliar with the literature relevant to the dispute. Sraffa, as it happens, was named as a mole by Michael Straight in his testimony to the FBI, referenced in John Costello's standard work on the Cambridge spies, "Mask of Treachery", which I referred in an earlier post to Enigma00. It is a frustrating business to have one's supporting references ignored. In addition, Enigma00's rejection of Gasking and Jackson's testimony as to Wittgenstein's Stalinism is based solely on the fact that others did NOT refer to his Stalinism, which is logically vacuous. (One would not dismiss Fania Pascal's testimony that Wittgenstein spoke Russian, for example, on the basis that some other authors fail to mention it.) Enigma00 might like to also check Trevor Redpath's "Student's Memoir" recounting Wittgenstein's reaction to a film of a landlord being murdered, that Redpath writes revealed Wittgenstein's political sympathies. With Monk, I consider Moran to be a reliable source. The 1939 visit was not mentioned in "The Jew of Linz" simply because I took the central issue to be the Soviet offer of the Chair at Lenin's university to Wittgenstein. One cannot include everything and the book had several chapters omitted because of space limitations anyway. (These were judged suitable for inclusion in the French edition by PUF.) In short, there is a point of view - by now, not just my own - that Wittgenstein's Cambridge activities were treasonable, and that can be supported by indisputable facts in the literature. The facts on which this view is based ought not be edited away from the Wikipedia article every time they are presented. Here, by the way, is some relevant material from Ray Monk supporting Turing's perception of Wittgenstein's radical Bolshevism: "The changes Wittgenstein wished to see are...I believe, so radical that the name 'full-blooded Bolshevism' suggests itself as a natural way to describe the militant tendency of his remarks." (http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/dlwg/ws03/08-1-95.txt) Monk's remark might help Enigma00 realize that Turing might simply have been right and not hard to understand at all.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 03:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for not being as well read as Mr. Cornish clearly is. That Straight named Sraffa as a mole to the FBI is interesting, as is its reference in Costello's book, but does that make it true? Is that good evidence that it's true? That one man claimed it is no reason for us to take it as true; Mr. Cornish is merely seeing what he wants to see based on his own concerns. No other biographical source about Sraffa that I have checked mentions anything about his being a Soviet spy. My rejection of G. & J.'s testimony is not vacuous. Your counter-example fails, because Fania Pascal was in an excellent position to know whether or not W. spoke Russian, [i]because she taught him Russian[/i]. G. and J. were not in a similar position to know W.'s political leanings, and their testimony is not only not reflected in other accounts of W., but actually contradicted by it; see for example the quote I mentioned from Rhees' book in my last post (it seems I am not the only one to ignore supporting references). Monk DOES cite Moran, but does not cite the particular part of the article of interest here. Just because he cited part of that particular article gives us no reason to think all of the article is in order. The point in question is that Moran obtained this information from Drobnitsky, who got it from Mrs Gornstein, who got it from Sophia Janovskaya. Information of this nature, passed on orally through four people is bound to get confused, especially information regarding events in the past. What is more likely - that one of the three people in the pre-Moran chain of information made a mistake, or that every other W. biographer has failed to notice that W. went to the USSR again in 1939, at a time in which it would be highly unusual for him to do so? I submit to you that Ockham's razor is quite useful here. Your view of Wittgenstein is outlandish and, as I have said many times before, completely at odds with the picture painted of him by his closest friends and students, e.g. Rush Rhees, Norman Malcolm, GEM Anscombe, Peter Geach, and GH von Wright; not to mention accounts of him by others who knew him fairly well, such as Moore and Russell. By the way, I believe that your final quote from Monk is taken the wrong way; Monk is here agreeing that "Bolshevism" is an accurate characterization of W.'s philosophy of mathematics because of its RADICAL nature; that is, its complete break from traditional philosophy of math. As Monk notes, it is because of the 'militant tendency of the remarks' that the description is apt. He did not mean to agree that it was in some way Communist; in any case how a non-political area philosophy might be Communist is beyond me. Turing's remark, interpreted as meaning literally that W.'s philosophy is communist, is a bit cryptic, but as I said before it seems meant as an insult, not a serious criticism, and results, I think, from a lack of understanding of W.'s philosophy; something one shouldn't be surprised about. That said, why can't we leave the sentence as-is, as Itsmejudith changed it to, and be done with this? I have, after all, said I can live with it. Or do you have more controversial information just waiting to be added? Enigma00 (talk) 05:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Michael Straight's testimony is available by making an FOI request to the FBI. I have done this myself a number of times, though not (yet) for the Straight testimony. Costello, however, was a reliable source and there is no reason to doubt what he says. Whether Straight's testimony is sufficient to have nailed Sraffa (by then, I think, dead) as a mole, it certainly convinced the authorities that Blunt was a mole and in fact was sufficient to force his confession. ("Spycatcher", by Peter Wright, a former MI5 department head, provides some of the Blunt interrogation details, as it also does on the spying activities of Alistair Watson, another long-term Wittgenstein acolyte.) Enigma00 judges that Straight's naming Sraffa is only "one man" claiming it, that there "is no reason for us to take it as true" and even that "Mr. Cornish is merely seeing what he wants to see based on his own concerns." But the fact that the FBI notified the British security agencies as soon as Straight informed them and that Blunt confessed thereafter, speaks strongly to the fact that Straight was telling the truth, at least about about Blunt. One can take it for granted that Straight would have been questioned on every detail of his story by experienced professional interrogators. If Straight also named Sraffa, that is to say, then we can (all of us - not just me!) rest reasonably assured that Sraffa was a mole. On G & J's testimony, all I can say is that Gasking was a Party member at Cambridge. David Armstrong once said to me that in his opinion, Jackson (with whom he had worked at Melbourne) was even more left-wing that Gasking. I interviewed them both. Let me simply state that if G&J thought someone to be a Stalinist then he was a Stalinist, end of story - because they knew Cambridge communists and could judge. Both men had fallen foul of the Australian security authorities, as I detailed in "The Jew of Linz".and were keen judges of one's political orientation. (I believe they recommended academic appointments on that basis, but that is another story.) On the Janovskaya interviews, Moran reported as he reported, with great detail on precisely how he got the information. Is third hand information - even from Academicians less reliable than from first-hand sources? Of course. Can it therefore be dismissed? I think not. Whether or not my view of Wittgenstein "is outlandish" it is held by a steadily increasing number of academics, of whom Professor Flew is perhaps the most eminent. It is not made to be "outlandish" by the mere assertion that it is. On the "Bolshevik line" in areas other than philosophy and politics, Enigma00 should familiarise himself with the Lysenko case, in which lunatic biological doctrines gained Party endorsement, resulting in Vavilov and the academic cream of Russian Biology being deliberately starved to death. Stalin's articles on Linguistics destroyed the science in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Was there a Party line on Mathematics? There was a Party line on EVERYTHING, Mathematics included. Non-compliant Soviet Mathematicians were murdered in droves. (For one small example, do a Google search on "Yanovskaya Logic Denunciation Luzhin"). On Wittgenstein's comment to Rhees, my views on it were presented long ago in "The Jew of Linz" (as, incidentally, was also a note of Costello's reference to Sraffa as a mole, which might have saved Enigma00 some work had he read it.) Wittgenstein was there warning Rhees (then a student and not yet a philosopher) from deviating from the Party line. Trotsky paid for deviating from Stalinism with an ice-pick through his skull. Perhaps Rhees was lucky. (We ought remember that Alexander Litvinenko was murdered just over a year ago, so Russian elimination of political opponents was not just an aberration of the thirties.) On Itsmejudith's edit, yes, I can live with it too. Shall we call the matter closed?Kimberley Cornish (talk) 09:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. But I can't live with it, at least not while it remains uncited. The two citation needed tags must be replaced by references to appropriate texts or I will delete the sentences to which they relate. I am also a little concerned that Mr Cornish is getting confused between WP editing and his real-world research, hence frequently referring us back on this talk page to primary sources. To us it is irrelevant what Straight, Costello, Gasking, Yanovskaya et al might have said or done. All that is relevant is what secondary sources have made of it all since. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

On the 1.7 tonnes of Wittgenstein gold delivered to the Nazis, the reference is: Edmonds, David and Eidinow, John. "Wittgenstein’s Poker", Faber and Faber, London 2001, p.98. (I seem to be unable to edit the reference section on the main page.)Kimberley Cornish (talk) 22:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I've amended the reference to the one you gave, Kimberley. References aren't actually edited in the reference section, but in the section of text that they are linked from - you can see how I did it at this diff [1]]. DuncanHill (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

My thanks to DuncanHill.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 05:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The other reference is: Moran, John. "Wittgenstein and Russia" New Left Review 73 (May-June, 1972), pp. 83-96. Incidentally, readers might have noticed the attempted poisoning of British academic Oleg Gordievsky, reported in all major British and world news media this very week. There is no reason to think anything was different in Stalin's time; in fact, quite the contrary. This writer therefore rather regrets the lack of detailed autopsy reports on Francis Skinner, Frank Ramsey and George Paul.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 21:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Where should the NLR ref go please? I can insert it for you if you wish (if you want to do it yourself, references are added by editing the section of text that they relate to, and putting <ref>REFERENCE GOES HERE</ref> ). DuncanHill (talk) 13:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you to DuncanHill again for the offer, but the reference is now inserted. I now have no objections should this thread be archived.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 21:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Picture

We lost the picture? Can someone upload it again (or get it undeleted) and add a fair use rationale this time? We obviously can't take a fresh one of him so it will have to be either fair use or PD. Richard001 (talk) 02:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The location was . I suppose you can ask for undeletion from the admin or upload another non-free image. –Pomte 02:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Undeletion of images is not possible. Try commons. JFW | T@lk 22:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm attempting to resolve this; please give me some time to work on it. Most likely I'll write a FUR then list the image on IfD to invite discussion. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 07:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Er, nevermind. The fair use rationale is clear enough and certainly legally rigorous, but compliance with WP:NFCC#10A doesn't seem possible. The description page claims Moritz Naehr to be the photographer, but the page cited [2] doesn't specifically confirm this, and I couldn't find info on the author of the original anywhere else on the web. It seems likely that no living person knows who the original photographer was. The Wittgenstein Archive's copyright claim is, frankly, quite ludicrous, but the unknown original author poses a tough dilema.

I looked through the commons; doesn't seem to be anything besides the Hitler photo, unless it's hidden. Unless we get rid of WP:NFCC#10A or push for an exception to it, I think our best option is to find an image for which the original author is known and write a fair use rationale for that. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 08:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This is utterly ridiculous. A great number of images of Wittgenstein are going to be public domain - certainly pictures of him when he was young ought to be. So far as I can tell, our image use policies are entirely designed to make it hard to have decent images. john k (talk) 16:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

And NFCC 10A is completely ridiculous. One of the whole reasons for fair use is that it's not always possible to attribute things, and determine if they're under copyright or not. john k (talk) 16:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely. I had gone into a lot of research into providing a fair use rationale on the image's talk page, and that really should have been sufficient I think. To proactively remove the image when there hasn't even been a copyright complaint seems to be the trend on Wikipedia, and it's one of the reasons I've been making fewer and fewer contributions lately. What irks me more is that I've found the exact same picture of Wittgenstein in books being commercially sold (remember, in contrast, that Wikipedia is largely not-for-profit, with some small exceptions) - and the image isn't even given copyright credit! More than one publisher simply didn't see it as an issue. I've been looking for other books that have the picture and have the copyright claim on them, but I have yet to find any. Can anyone recommend a Wittgenstein book with lots of photos?  :) FranksValli (talk) 08:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

This is totally insane. I should probably just calm down and walk away, since any attempt to point out that this policy is totally insane just leads to ridiculous responses from the guardians of the current policy, which will make me angry and upset without solving anything. This is so ridiculous. john k (talk) 14:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think our best bet at this time is to either scan a new picture from a book that has copyright info listed, or possibly use a picture from the ALWS. Notice the pictures on that page are credited to Dr. Elisabeth Leinfellner. I've contacted her by email just now and hopefully I'll get a reply with more info. FranksValli (talk) 06:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I received a reply in regards to the pictures at ALWS:

Dear Mr Calhoun,

"Firstly, I do not own the originals as claimed on our website. As you will see, it doesn't really matter.

There was already a discussion on the internet whether a certain picture of Wittgenstein - the foto taken in Swansea, that's the one with the scibbled-on wall in the back - was copyrighted or not. Several people explained to me that it might be copyrighted. However, I tell, and have told, everybody, that I based my judgement on *Austrian* copyright law, as handed out, for instance, by the foto collection of our National Library.

People seem to believe that if they own the negative of a foto, or the "original" foto, whatever this is, they own copyright. This is mistaken. Principally, copyright protects works from being used commercially, and it would have to be decided whether "Wikipaedia" counts as a commercial untertaking or is "in the public domain", as it were. There is also in other countries the notion of "fair use".

In Austria, "artistic" photos are copyrighted according to the general law that 70 years have to pass after the copyright expires.

This could apply to the first picture, the so-called "college foto" which was taken by Nähr. Nähr, however, was of socialist/communist leanings and did not care about copyright, as one of his relatives told me. We sell the college foto at our conferences. It has been published repeatedly and I don't remember any problems.

According to Austrian law, the copyright situation for snapshots is quite different. The copyright for snapshots expires 50 years after the foto has been taken. It has been maintained that the Swansea foto (see above), taken by Ben Richards, is an "artistic" foto, but "artistic" according to the law means simply taken by a professional, be the quality ever so bad. That this is a snapshot is attested by the fact that Wittgenstein took a picture of Richards in front of the same wall.

The other foto is snapshot, too, taken by Dorothy Mooore, and the last ones shows Wittgenstein in Otterthal, about 1926.

Please note that this is *Austrian* law.

All fotos have been endlessly reproduced and even the Cambridge Archive has no real claim to them, except of course, their digital reproduction.

You are welcome to use the pictures. Please credit the archive of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, but *not* as the copyright holder.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Elisabeth Leinfeller"

FranksValli (talk) 18:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've gone ahead and jumped through all the necessary hoops to make sure the photo is acceptable. Its size has been reduced in order to meet the fair use criteria, but the link to the off-site fully-sized version is on the image's description page. FranksValli (talk) 06:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Lungs

In 1990 a historical account from Prof Eric Bywaters mentions that Wittgenstein, apart from working as a mortuary porter in Guy's hospital, also assisted a team of researchers in Newcastle who were investigating crush syndrome. Bywaters comments on his skill in slicing lung from autopsied patients for pathological inspection! PMC 1679829 JFW | T@lk 22:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Most interesting. :-) — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 08:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Pragmatics of Human Communication

'Pragmatics of Human Communication, a Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas and Don D. Jackson is a good reference point for this subject —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.137.58 (talk) 08:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Religious categories

The subject is placed in a number of religious categories, but I am not sure if they are appropriate - certainly one of the cited sources states "Wittgenstein himself was baptized in a Catholic church and was given a Catholic burial, although between baptism and burial he was neither a practicing nor a believing Catholic" [3]. DuncanHill (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a good point. It is a matter of debate just how religious W. was. He often talked of religion, and leading a religious life, but I don't think he meant by it what most would mean by 'a religious life'. He is also quoted as saying that he could "never bring [himself] to believe what they believe", referring to his Catholic friends. (See Norman Malcolm's Memoir) I propose we keep the ones that refer generically to him being Christian, as I think that may be fair, and to him being Jewish, as he was ethnically Jewish. But we can probably eliminate the ones that refer to him being a Roman Catholic. Enigma00 (talk) 18:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Even the Jewish ones may be problematical - to the Nazis he was Jewish, but by Orthodox traditions he wasn't - is there a policy or guideline which would be helpful to refer to here? I know this is an area which has the potential to produce much heat and little light, so if someone familiar with Wikipedia's practices/policies on religious cats could help us understand the appropriate way to categorize him that would be very helpful. DuncanHill (talk) 21:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Best to post a note at WikiProject Judaism. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I have asked for input at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism#Help_with_categorization_requested.. DuncanHill (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The one response from the Judaism WikiProject is interesting, but I think I remember reading somewhere W.'s particular thoughts about his "Jewishness". I think they are quoted in Monk's biography, so I'll see if I can find them. Enigma00 (talk) 03:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Wittgenstein was halachically fully Jewish. He also claimed to be Jewish; in fact "the greatest of Jewish thinkers". His brother Paul and his sisters claimed in an American lawsuit that they were Jewish. His uncle Louis claimed the Wittgensteins were "pure-blood" Jews. Turn of the century Viennese newspapers castigated Karl Wittgenstein as another Jew in partnership with the Rothschilds and the Gutmanns in the steel cartel. (Jewish control of the Empire's heavy industry was in fact a universal rallying point of anti-Semitism.) The topic was raised in an earlier thread of the Wittgenstein discussion titled "Jewcentric ramblings" claiming that Wittgenstein was not Jewish, to which I responded with full references to the contrary. The thread is now archived, but having a peek at it might save a lot of work for others. Wittgenstein and his brother were in fact denied entry to a Viennese gymnasium because they were Jews, but the only issue that matters is the religious affiliation of Therese Zohrer (born in Steinbruckl) who was Wittgenstein's great-grandmother in the maternal line (Marie Stallner's mother). I have been given very good grounds to understand that she was Jewish and am currently awaiting further confirmatory documents from Austria. Given that both Wittgenstein and his family members claimed to be Jewish, that he was recognised in Vienna as Jewish and that he was Jewish by descent in the female line (an in all other lines!) there isn't any real scope for further argument. This topic shouldn't be being continually raised in ignorance of what has gone before. Readers should simply follow up on the religious affiliation of Therese Zohrer, who has been listed on a website of the University of Vienna by the cultural historian Dr Ursula Prokop.Kimberley Cornish (talk) 23:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk page maintenance

Reminder

Please could everyone remember to sign their posts here with ~~~~? This helps other editors see who said what and when, and also helps with archiving (this page is getting too long, and posts which aren't datestamped don't get archived).
Also, please start new threads at the bottom of the page - not at the top or intersppersed between existing threads. Again, this helps other editors keep track of discussion. Thanks! DuncanHill (talk) 14:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

I have archived 1314 threads which have shewn no activity after December 2006 to Talk:Ludwig Wittgenstein/Archive 3. A further 6 threads have shewn no activity since August 2007 (six months ago). If no-one objects I propose archiving these in say a week's time. This is to reduce the size of this page, and keep "live" threads more visible, which should help with the discussions. Please do comment if you have any thoughts on this, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 15:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The only problem I can see is that you archived the very intertesting thread "Wittgenstein in Moscow in 1939" which is still active (or was up to March 2008) - a long way past the December 2006 limit you state. It is important to be accurate in stating what you have done. Would you revert it back to the main discussion page please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.44.212 (talk) 21:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't archive that thread (or any others which I had not stated), as can be seen from the history. Another editor came after me and archived many more threads. DuncanHill (talk) 21:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have now restored those threads which have shewn activity in the last 6 months (i.e. I have left archived those 6 threads which I had earlier proposed archiving in a week's time). I hope this is OK! DuncanHill (talk) 22:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I did the archiving. In my opinion, if someone hasn't touched a discussion in a month (Wittgenstein in Moscow is just a day short), it's basically dead and folks can start a new discussion. I think 6 months is way over-the-top, but I'm not going to revert. -- Kesh (talk) 23:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I can see what you mean, but this page hadn't been archived in a long time and the ordering of threads had become very confused (unsigned, started at the top or between other threads, etc). I felt that the best way forward was to sort the threads out, add unsigned templates as appropriate, and go on from there. Some of the threads I restored today had activity on the 30th March this year. Now that they are in order it will be easier in future to perform more frequent and regular archiving. DuncanHill (talk) 23:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ordering of threads, etc.

I have added the appropriate {{unsigned}} template wherever I could work out that it belonged. I have also moved a couple of threads which had been started at the top of the page to their correct position by date of commencement. In doing this, I have not added or removed any part of anyone's text, and I have not in any way altered the order of postings within any thread. This should help with future archiving, as well as maintaining the continuity of the page. DuncanHill (talk) 19:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Standardized archives

I've gone through and standardized the archives. They all follow the "Archive #" name, and have a template that makes navigation easier. The discussions that were moved off to their own pages have been incorporated into this, to make it easier to find and follow. Hope this looks good! -- Kesh (talk) 21:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)