From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 02 2004 - 18:19:29 GMT
Hi Mark,
> 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.
<grin>
> 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.
He was also a bit of a toad, wasn't he? Are you familiar with LW's remark about Russell's writings?
He said all his books on logic etc should be bound in blue, as they are excellent and necessary. And
all his other writings, especially the political stuff, should be bound in red and ignored....
> 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.
The tightrope walker quote is one of my favourites, it goes with "An honest religious thinker is
like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support
is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it." W is saying that the
profession of faith is meaningless without a difference in how life is lived.
I think it's a fascinating question how far W was actually a 'believer'. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't
qualify, but I agree there's room for debate. If anything, I think he resembles what Scott described
the other day, someone who is wholly on the fourth level, for whom all the third level stuff
(rituals etc) had absolutely no meaning. Although that's too strong for W, he felt that they had
quite a bit of meaning, and he was quite criticial of intellectuals who felt themselves 'above'
these things. I think he would probably qualify as a 'Godfearer' rather than a member of the
faithful. But who knows? It's something I've pondered a lot though.
Regards
Sam
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