Skilful philosophers? Wittgenstein about the state of civilization and his own person
and work in 1930
W. Kienzler, January 2015
Abstract:
Wittgenstein made a notorious remark, in a lecture in late 1930, that there could now be
‘skilful’ philosophers because ‘a method has been found’ – while at the same time culture
is declining and there is no longer the possibility to ‘express one’s personality in
philosophy’. This remark does not claim that he himself has found such a method, but it
rather describes ideas about method current in the Vienna Circle. This can best be seen
from other things Wittgenstein contemplates in 1930 when he is reading Spengler,
writing to Schlick and sketches a preface to an imaginary book he might be writing some
day.
I A puzzle
At the very beginning of his first 1930 Michaelmas Term lecture Wittgenstein elaborated
on philosophy in a way that has caused some confusion. There are four accounts of this
event: (1) Students’ notes in LWL,1 p. 21, (2) Desmond Lee’s brief testimony, (3)
Moore’s account in his Wittgenstein’s Lectures,2 and (4) Moore’s original lecture notes
(currently being prepared for publication).
This is the LWL version:
The nimbus of philosophy has been lost. For we now have a method of doing philosophy,
and can speak of skilful philosophers. Compare the difference between alchemy and
chemistry; chemistry has a method and we can speak of skilful chemists. But once a
method has been found the opportunities for the expression of personality are
correspondingly restricted. The tendency of our age is to restrict such opportunities; this
is a characteristic of an age of declining culture or without culture. A great man need be
1
Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge 1930-1932, D. Lee, ed., Oxford 1980.
G.E. Moore, Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930-33, in: Mind 1953-4, in Moore,
Philosophical Papers, and in: Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, pp.45113 [quoted from this edition].
2
1
no less great in such periods, but philosophy is now being reduced to a matter of skill and
the philosopher’s nimbus is disappearing. (LWL, p. 21)
This is Lee’s testimony („where I can remember the words I shall use inverted
commas.“):
‘Philosophy has lost its aura. In the future it will be possible to speak of clever
philosophers.’ To illustrate what he meant he cited the contrast between alchemy and
chemistry. Till chemistry was put on a scientific footing – and by this Wittgenstein
considered that we meant until it discovered a method of investigation – it remained
alchemy. Alchemy was concerned with th same field, but its theories were mere
guesswork and its experiments blind. It wa turned into a science by discovering a method.
The discovery of a method may well call for genius: but when the method is found, mere
cleverness is all that is needed. (Wittgenstein did not undervalue cleverness, but thought
it a common quality compared to genius.) So today philosophy has found its method. (It
is this no doubt that he meant when he wrote in the Tractatus that ‘the problems were
finally solved’.) ‘In philosophy all that is not gas is grammar.’3
In these words Wittgenstein describes a general drift in the development of philosophy –
philosophy becoming a (kind of) science. He also expresses the conviction that all this is
part of the decline or decay of culture. He does not say that he himself has any part in this
development. On the contrary, it is quite obvious that he does not wish to be part of such
a development, and that he speaks from the outside about it.
It seems, however, that Lee believes that this basic idea is already expressed in the
Tractatus, and that he does not see clearly that Wittgenstein is speaking about other
people doing philosophy in a certain style.
The first account of this lecture was published by G.E. Moore in 1954-5 in Mind and
reprinted in his Philosophical Papers (1959).4 This version has influenced the way it was
understood. He prepared his article from his own lecture notes, and this is (part of) the
result:
3
4
Lee, Wittgenstein, in: Flowers, ed., Portraits of Wittgenstein, vol. 2, p. 195.
Also in Philosophical Occasions (1993).
2
I was a great deal surprised by some of the things he said about the difference between
‘philosophy’ in the sense in which he was doing might be called ‘philosophy’ (he called
this ‘modern philosophy’), and what had traditionally been called ‘philosophy’. He said
what he was doing was a ‘new subject’, and not merely a stage in a ‘continuous
development’; that there was now, in philosophy, a ‘kink’ in the ‘development of human
thought’, comparable to that which occurred when Galileo and his contemporaries
invented dynamics; that a ‘new method’ had been discovered, as had happened when
‘chemistry was developed out of alchemy’; and that it was now possible for the first time
that there should be ‘skilful‘ philosophers, though of course in the past there had been
‘great’ philosophers.
He went on to say that, though philosophy had now been ‘reduced to a matter of skill’,
yet this skill, like other skills, is very difficult to acquire. One difficulty was that it
required a ‘sort of thinking’ to which we are not accustomed and to which we have not
been trained – a sort of thinking very different from what was required in the sciences.
And he said that the required skill could not be acquired merely by hearing lectures:
discussion was essential. As regards his own work, he said it did not matter whether his
results were true or not; what mattered was that ‘a method had been found’.
(PP, p. 322/ PO, p. 113)
Moore sounds quite positive in attributing this style of philosophy to Wittgenstein and
there is no reason to doubt that he took it that way – except for him being surprised. This
indicated that he felt that this charactarization did not really agree smoothly with the rest
of what Wittgenstein said.
Moore’s original lecture notes, however, do not contain any passages where Wittgenstein
explicitly endorses this conception:
[…] So [The?] atmosphere of science, in which we all live, was created by Galileo and
others who invented dynamics. It’s modern philosophy that one hasn’t trained in: it is a
new subject. […] Philosophy has reached new state now, and development is not
continuous. Thus dynamics started with Galileo. Development of human thought has
kinks in it: there is one now in philosophy – namely a method has been found; as when
chemistry developed out of alchemy.// There have been great philosophers; but now, for
the first time, there can be skilful ones. This doesn’t mean that progress has occurred; but
that style of thinking has changed = nimbus of philosophy has been lost. […]
In some cases there is no room for expression of personality – none for nimbus. // The
moment a method is found, one way of expressing personality is lost. And there’s no
reason to be sorry for this.
General tendency of this age is to take away possibilities of expression; which is
characteristic of age without a culture, But a great man remains just as great.// Philosophy
is reduced to a matter of skill: but it’s very difficult to acquire any skill. // You can’t
acquire it by hearing lectures: only way is to discuss. // Simile of branch planted.// It
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doesn’t matter whether I tell you the truth or not: because the method is found. (Moore,
Forthcoming)
This is the description of the nature, the general tendency of an age – not of
Wittgenstein’s particular way of doing philosophy. It is also the description of a scientific
approach to philosophy. Wittgenstein repeatedly uses and emphasizes the word ‘method’
in his description; he does not, however, explain this method in any detail. The closest his
talk of method comes to seems to be T.S. Kuhn’s (much later and possibly in part
Wittgenstein-inspired) talk of a paradigm. A paradigm constitutes the possibility of
normal science, it makes skilful scientists possible. We could thus understand ‘method’
roughly as ‘the general way to practice some particular science’ – this would involve
practical training – and this would be one reason why it could not be learned from just
hearing lectures.
All of this sounds like some Vienna Circle ideas, but not like (later) Wittgenstein.5
I* The two personal remarks
The first and last sentence in Moore’s condensed versions now come out thus: The first
sentence does not put down anything from the lecture but rather Moore’s general opinion
that Wittgenstein had described his own method. The last sentence („he said it did not
matter whether his results were true or not; what mattered was that ‘a method had been
found’“) expresses the idea that within the new method (or paradigm) everything had
become (or was about to become) impersonal, detached from the personality of the
researcher – therfore it did not matter „whether I tell you the truth or not“ [actual lecture
5
When he wrote the Tractatus Wittgenstein also did not believe that he had turned
philosophy into a skill – as the Preface to that work makes perfectly clear. The closest he
ever came to holding such a view may have been the year 1929, when he wrote remarks
like this one: „I still find my own way of doing philosophy new, and I find this again and
again; that is why I have to repeat myself so often. It will have become second nature to a
new generation, to whom the repetitions will be boring. For me they are necessary.“ (CV,
p. 1) This seems to express the idea that Wittgenstein was about to train a new generation
in the way to do philosophy. He also expressed his main point briefly in the ‚transition
from the question for truth to the question for sense’. Here we have Wittgenstein
speaking as the author of the Tractatus without still adhering to the Tractatus system. In
late 1930, however, his attitude had changed again.
4
note] – there is no ‘I’ in any way relevant anymore. This remark stresses the
disappearance of the ‘I’ in modern, Vienna-Circle-Style philosophy. It may also carry
quite an amount of sarcasm.
II The background and sources: Spengler
In this lecture Wittgenstein is speaking about the future of philosophy as seen from a
Vienna Circle perspective – and about the general state of cultue in a way reminding of
Spengler.6
In May 1930 he had been reading Spengler (Ms 183, 16)7 and had written down a
number of remarks in a Spenglerian spirit. He reasoned about the possibility of
‘greatness’, about Copernicus’ or Einstein’s feats being great (183, 22) and decided that
something can only be great [groß, or bedeutend] if it is ‘symbolic’ – and this would be
independent of any practical importance. Another term for being great he uses is having
‘nimbus’. This he brings out in a mundane example:
„Drinking, which is in one age symbolic, is in another age just getting wasted.// That is,
the nimbus, the genuine nimbus does not attach to the external fact, i.e. to the fact.“ (183,
24-5)8
III Background and sources: Schlick
6
For more on Wittgenstein and Spengler see my ‚Wittgenstein und Spengler’, in:
Rothhaupt/ Vossenkuhl, eds., Kulturen und Werte, De Gruyter, Berlin/ Boston 2013, pp.
317-336.
7
These remarks are translated in Public and Private Occasions, Klagge and Nordmann,
eds., pp. 25-35. The translations have sometimes been emended.
8
Incidentally, immediately after this Wittgenstein writes a remark which expresses his
lack of confidence in teaching philosophy: „When teaching philosophy one can often say:
„Scoundrels themselves who turn us into rogues““ (Spitzbuben selbst, die uns zu
Schelmen machen, from Schiller, Wallenstein). This emphasizes that in philosophy no
student can have solid ground and a secure method, simply because no teacher has. It
may be noted that the remark was written on May 6, one day after lecture A X (LWL, p.
16-7).
5
In Summer 1930 the Vienna Circle launched its journal Erkenntnis. The first issue
opened with a manifesto-type article by Moritz Schlick, ‘The Turning-Point in
Philosophy’ (Die Wende der Philosophie).9 Schlicks declares that finally the „anarchy of
opinions“ can be overcome and that a „irrevocable, definite turning-point [a kink, WK] of
philosophy“ has been achieved. All this has to do with method, to be sure there is even
more „than the mere development of a method“.10 Also, after preparations by Russell and
Frege, this fundamental change has been brought about by Wittgenstein and his
Tractatus. According to Schlick Wittgenstein has achieved even more than a method, but
„the insight into the nature of logic itself“. Now philosophy can really be systematical –
and it seems Schlick would have liked it to be a systematical science, but following the
letter of the Tractatus all he can say is that philosophy is „not a system of knowledge but
a system of acts“ (i.e. a system of acts of logical clarification).
Schlick sent the issue to Wittgenstein who replied friendly but firmly:
Concerning your article I would like to tell you one thing: You know – or I hope that you
know – how grateful I am for your friendlness and acknowledgement. But this is a
personal matter. And I wish you could tune down your – well-intended- fanfares. There is
certainly no reasonto be triumphant; for a thousand reasons not. And don’t forget the
wonderful line from Nestroy (I cannot quote it literally): progress has the peculiar feature
that it always looks greater than it really is. (Letter to Schlick, Sept 18, 1930)11
9
English translation in Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism, 1959, pp. 53-59.
Schlick is quite careful not to explicitly contradict Wittgenstein. He would like to say
that Wittgenstein has found the right method to do philosophy. As there is no such
method explained in the Tractatus, he cannot – thus he tries to say that Wittgenstein has
found something which is even more important than method.
11
„Was den Artikel anbelangt so möchte ich nur Eines sagen: Sie wissen – oder ich
hoffe, daß Sie es wissen – wie dankbar ich Ihnen für Ihre freundliche Gesinnung und
Anerkennung bin. Aber das ist eine persönliche Sache. Und ich wollte Sie könnten Ihre
so wohlgemeinten – Fanfarenstöße mildern. Es ist ja doch kein Grund zum Triumph; aus
1000 Gründen nicht. Und vergessen Sie, bitte, nicht das herrliche Wort Nestroys (ich
kann es nicht wörtlich zitieren): der Fortschritt hat es so an sich, daß er immer größer
ausschaut, als er ist.“
10
6
The general opinion Wittenstein held regarding the Vienna-Circle-Style of philosophy is
too well-known to be repeated again here.12
In early October Wittgenstein again is diffident about the approaching term:
It is 3 weeks since I thought of philosophy but every thought of it is foreign to me as if it
had been years that I had thought such things. In my first lecture I want to speak about
the specific difficulties of philosophy und now I have the feeling: how can I say anything
about that, I don’t even know them anymore. (183, 46-7)
On the same day he had written:
In Big-City-Civilization Spirit can only huddle in some corner. And yet it is not atavistic
nor superfluous but hovers above the ashes of culture as an (eternal) witness – so to speak
as an avenger of the deity.13 (183, 46)
This was his preparation for talking about the decline of culture one week later.
It is, however, no surprise that his audience could not possibly guess at the background of
the brief introductory remarks Wittgenstein actually made during his lecture.
IV The second part of the lecture
However, the next part of his lecture might have tipped them off. In LWL it is simply the
next paragraph, in Moore’s original notes there is a break at this point and a new heading
starts: „What is Philosophy?“ Then Wittgenstein goes on to offer something of his own,
if very cautiously. In LWL we read:
„We start with a vague mental uneasinss, like that of a child asking; Why? The child’s
question is not that of a mature person; it expresss puzzlement rather than the request for
precise information.“ (LWL, p. 22)
12
Of course in later years Wittgenstein was very much aware of his influence on the
Circle („I founded the Logical Positivists!“ Public and Private Occasions, 396) – and this
may have added some ambivalence to his lecture remarks discussed here. (And this, in
turn, may have contributed to Moore and Lee misunderstanding him.)
13
Wittgenstein even added: „As if it awaited a new incarnation (in a new culture).“ This
chimes with Spengler’s idea that each 1000 years a new culture rises after the previous
one has died down.
7
This is Wittgenstein’s description of his own style of philosophy. The remark echoes the
way Hertz tried to clarify the concept of force (one of Wittgenstein’s favourite
examples)– maybe he is laying it on a bit thick after having talked so much about
‘method’ before. The real situation in philosophy is one where we do not even have a
clear notion of where we are to begin.
V The next step: Writing towards a preface
The issues Wittgenstein meditated about in 1930 and that surfaced briefly in his lecture
continued to occupy him. In November he wrote down a number of remarks that were
intended to generate a Preface to ‘his book’. Some of them have been printed as a Preface
to Philosophical Remarks, some others have appeared in Culture and Value (1980 ed, pp.
6-8.). There has been some discussion what work they were intended for – and this
discussion has not led to any generally accepted result. The above considerations may
give a clue to an answer: These ramblings were intended to help Wittgenstein place
himself within the surrounding of a culture or civilization that he found alien and which
he rejected. He expressed the expectation that the energy of a great person in this
civilization would not lead to any great works, but would most likely be transformed into
mere heat of friction. In these remarks he very much emphasized that contrast that he had
failed to express clearly in his lecture abut the skilful philosophers. While he does
mention a book it seems that in these jottings Wittgenstein mainly wrote a preface to a
book which most probably would never come into existence, considering the way the
world was developing. Again he does not write about his book or his method (neither one
existing at that moment), but about his own feelings of uneasiness towards the outside
world.
Appendix: Schlick on skill, science and method
In Early Sepember 1930 Schlick spoke in Oxford about „The Future of Philosophy“ –
This is the part about Wittenstein:
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I realize how difficult it is [...] to make anyone believe that the discovery of the nature of
philosophy, which is to bear such wonderful fruit, has already been achieved. Yet it is my
firm conviction that this is really the case and that we are witnessing the beginning of a
new era of philosophy, that its future will be very different from its past, which has been
so full of pitiful failures, vain struggles, and futile disputes.
Great truths are rarely discovered all of a sudden; they are usually approached from more
than one side and by more than one man. So the truth about the real function of
philosophy has in modern times dawned on a number of thinkers who have formulated it
in a more or less imperfect way. But the first one who saw it with absolute clearness was,
I believe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and he has expressed it in a perfect adequate manner. In
his Tractatus logico-philosophicus he declares:
‘The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a
theory but an activity. The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical
propositions”, but to make propositions clear.’
And this is the end of his lecture:
There will always be men who are especially fitted for analysing the ultimate meaning of
scientific theories, but who may not be skilful in handling the methods by which their
truth or falsehood is ascertained. These will be the men to study and to teach
philosophizing, but of course they would have to know the theories just as well as the
scientist who invents them. Otherwise they would not be able to take a single step, they
would have no object on which to work. A philosopher, therefore, who knew nothing
except philosophy would be like a knife without blade and handle. Nowadays a professor
of philosophy very often is a man who is not able to make anything clearer, that means he
does not really philosophize at all, he just talks about philosophy or writes a book about
it. This will be impossible in the future. The result of philosophizing will be that no book
will be written about philosophy, but that all books will be written in a philosophical
manner.14
14
Schlick, Moritz: ‘The Future of Philosophy‘. In: Ryle, Gilbert (ed.): Proceedings of the
Seventh International Congress of Philosophy held at Oxford, England, September 1-6,
1930, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931, S. 112-113. (Now in Gesammelte Werke I,
6, p. 311) This is not quite identical with the 1932 lecture of the same title reprinted in
The Linguistic Turn, ed. Rorty (1967).
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