Anil Gomes*1 “Private Notebooks 1914-1916 by Ludwig Wittgenstein review – sex and logic” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/18/private-notebooks-1914-1916-by-ludwig-wittgenstein-review-sex-and-logic
Private Notebooks 1914-1916、ヴィトゲンシュタインの第一次世界大戦中の日記がマージョリー・パーロフ*2によって英訳された。
ヴィトゲンシュタインの初期代表作『論理哲学論考』*3は第一次大戦の最中に構想・執筆された。彼が『論考』の原稿をバートランド・ラッセルへ郵送したのは伊太利の捕虜収容所からだった。この日記は、第一次世界大戦下の一兵士の日常雑事の記録であると同時に、『論考』に結実する哲学的思考の痕跡でもあるという。
左右の混乱と『論考』の結末；
The Tractatus is written as a series of numbered propositions, closer in form to modernist poetry than philosophical treatise. Its central ideas can be traced back to the notebooks Wittgenstein kept during the early years of the conflict. The right-hand side of each spread was used to set out his evolving thoughts on logic and language. The left-hand side was saved for his personal notes, written in a simple code in which the letters of the alphabet were reversed (Z = A, and so on).It is these private remarks that are published in English here for the first time, edited and translated by Marjorie Perloff. They range from complaints about the other soldiers – “a bunch of swine! No enthusiasm for anything, unbelievable crudity, stupidity & malice!” – to the number of times he masturbates (“Yesterday, for the first time in 3 weeks”). He recounts his depression – “like a stone it presses on my chest. Every duty turns into an unbearable burden” – and his living conditions. These are accompanied by constant updates on how his work is going. And by “work”, he always means philosophy. “Remember how great the blessing of work is!” he writes. This work is the focus; the war, a backdrop.
恋するヴィトゲンシュタイン；
Wittgenstein’s solution to the problems of logic was largely in place by 1916. And had his contribution to philosophy ended there, the Tractatus might be unknown beyond that particular sub-field. But the book ends with a series of puzzling remarks on ethics, value and the meaning of life – remarks that Wittgenstein thought central to his project but which both confused and frustrated his first readers. It is here that the Notebooks tantalise. For in the material on the left-hand pages Wittgenstein first begins to reflect on the inner self, on God’s presence in the world, on what is required for life to make sense. It can sometimes seem irrelevant to the discussion of logic taking place on the right-hand side. “Have thought a great deal about all sorts of things,” he writes, “but curiously enough cannot establish their connection to my mathematical train of thought.”nd then in 1916, facing death on the frontline, the connection is forged. Paradox in logic arises when you try to say those things that can only be shown. But that applies equally to God, the self and meaning. As he writes on a left-hand page, “What cannot be said, cannot be said”. The purview of ethics, like the purview of logic, lies outside the realm of what can be stated in language. And thus we get to the seventh and final statement of the Tractatus: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Even the masturbation is hard to separate from the philosophy: it happens when work is going well. For Wittgenstein, it seems, masturbation and philosophy are both expressions of living in the face of death.Perloff sees allusion to sexual affairs in some of Wittgenstein’s taciturn remarks. He records evening visits to the baths in Kraków and notes, somewhat matter-of-factly at the start of a new year, that “my moral standing is now much lower than it was at Easter”. More affecting is his unambiguous love and desire for his Cambridge friend David Pinsent*4. “A letter from David!! I kissed it. Answered right away.” Pinsent didn’t survive the war. He was a test pilot in Farnborough and died in an accident in May 1918. The Tractatus – one of the most significant works in 20th-century philosophy – is dedicated to his memory.
*1:See eg, https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/people/anil-gomes
*2:http://marjorieperloff.blog/ See eg. “fMarjorie Perloff” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marjorie-perloff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Perloff
*3:Mentioned in https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/20101211/1292091136 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/20170530/1496156010 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2022/05/14/163658
*4:See eg. “David Hume PINSENT (1891–1918)” https://web.archive.org/web/20120815202457/http://headington.org.uk/oxon/sunningwell/05_pinsent_david.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pinsent
