Hi Angus,
My Masters thesis was on Wittgenstein and mysticism, which (amongst other
things) looked briefly at the influence James' Variety of Religious
Experience had on him. To summarise my view, the influence was total in the
early Witt. but receded over time (in particular after Wittgenstein got to
grips with Frazer's Golden Bough). As it happens I think that James got
religious experience completely wrong (and where W followed him, primarily
in saying that mystical experience cannot be spoken about, he got it
wrong) - but that could launch a whole thread in and of itself. (Perhaps we
could have one on mysticism and metaphysics, focussing on whether the
writing of Lila was a degeneration from ZMM or not. Tantalising thought).
One other thing, I would argue that, in his own words, Wittgenstein's main
views came to him 'very early in life' and didn't change (an analogy - a
building is demolished and rebuilt, but the foundations - a particular type
of James-derived mysticism - are untouched). So I'm off to have a look at
your web-site.
Cheers
Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: "Angus Guschwan" <arshilegorky@yahoo.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: MD MOQ, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of love
> For historical placing as is my bent, Wittgenstein
> loved James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" and
> Pirsig mentions the same title in his defense in LILA
> of ZAMM. It's clear that Pirsig wrote ZAMM without
> direct James influence other than cultural
> assimilation. Pirsig, James, and Wittgenstein are
> brothers of a charm for sure. Pirsig even defines how
> he is different from James when he says "he combines
> radical empiricism with pragmatism."
>
> I would call a distinction though. There are 2
> Wittgenstein's: early and late. Later Wittgenstein
> renounces his earlier work. I've been feeling that
> Pirsig sounds like early Wittgenstein though of late
> and this email post shows that he might be a
> Wittgenstein synthesist. I'm a synthesist, as my web
> site www.appliedwittgenstein.com might attest. Might
> Pirsig also combine Wittgenstein as he did with James?
> I'd be interested in thoughts on that. Early
> Wittgenstein was the formalist, and later Wittgenstein
> was the "common sensist." You do need a formal system
> (the levels) to straighten things out (wittgenstein's
> formalism), but then there are certain things (morals)
> that are more based on faith in the mysticism of life
> forms (wittgenstein's later work). In a nutshell, that
> would be Pirsig maybe, and that would be early and
> late Wittgenstein.
>
> Angus
>
>
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