From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue Nov 02 2004 - 15:34:31 GMT
Hi Sam,
> msh says:
> Hi Sam. You may be right, about our measure of agreement.
> However, In doing my homework on Witt, I was tickled to be reminded
> that he, a closet Catholic, was a student of Bertrand (Why I Am Not
> A Christian) Russell's. Its interesting that Witt is your favorite
> philosopher and Russell is mine.
sam:
I'm surprised and intrigued to find a living fan of Bertrand Russell.
What do you like about him?
msh says:
I'm surprised you are surprised. One of the greatest and most
influential western intellectuals alive has a poster of Russell
tacked to his office door.
I should add that I admired BR long before I'd even heard of Noam
Chomsky. Aside from BR's (and Whitehead's) prodigious contributions
to the understanding of math and logic, Russell was a humanist and
activist throughout his long life, challenging authority and its
unjustified use of violence whenever he encountered it.
sam:
Not sure you're accurate in saying LW was a closet catholic though.
There are some fairly clear instances where he distances himself from
religious faith ("I am not a religious person but I can't help seeing
everything from a religious point of view" being probably the most
famous).
msh says:
Yes, this came off sounding a bit more flip than I'd intended.
However, as to the quote above, I'm not sure there's an important
difference between religious people and people with a religious point
of view. His youth was influenced by Catholicism, wasn't it? Just
this morning I read an exchange between Witt and one of his students
who had claimed a conversion to Catholicism. Wittgenstein replied:
'If someone tells me he has bought the outfit of a tightrope-walker I
am not impressed until I see what is done with it' This doesn't
sound like a rejection of Catholicism so much as an interest in
seeing what sort of life a Catholic might lead.
Also, the paragraphs of "On Certainty" were written in the year or
so before he died, right? And the thrust of those paragraphs seems
to be that faith may be regarded as a legitimate source of knowledge.
And he was aware of his declining health. So maybe, just maybe, my
suggestion that the didn't entirely escape the Catholicism of his
youth isn't so far off the wall.
But I have no doubt that you are much more familiar than I with
Witt's life and thought, so I defer to you on this point.
Best,
Mark (sh)
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