PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY, VOL.

XXV, No 1-2, WINTER - SRPING 2003

Schopenhauer & Wittgenstein: The Unsayable

Cengiz Cakmak
Istanbul University
Schopenhauer's philosophy is characteristic o f G e r m a n r o m a n t i c i s m and
Idealism i n its emphasis o n the n o t i o n o f expression. T h e romantics reacted
against the scientific idea o f the w o r l d as a distinct but ultimately homogenous
entities l i n k e d to one another by external relations o f mechanistic causality.
Instead they revived i n a way the p r e - m o d e r n idea that things were l i n k e d by
quasi-mechanistic causality, or that m i n d could somehow be reduced to body;
one may see the body as what expresses the m i n d . T h e r e is n o t h i n g particularly
mysterious or esoteric about this idea; it can be illustrated f r o m any ordinary
social i n t e r a c t i o n . N o r m a l l y we are able to see another person's feeling i n and
t h r o u g h her gestures, facial expressions, tone o f voice, "body language" and so
f o r t h . W e do not i n i t i a l l y see the "bare" behaviour straight o f f as expressive o f
m i n d ; we just see the gesture as one o f annoyance of w o r r y or whatever. H e r e
body and m i n d are connected expressively i n that the f o r m e r makes are all connected together i n v i r t u e o f the fact that they all together serve the underlying
state o f m i n d . F o r it is characteristically a p a t t e r n o f behaviour that makes an
emotion.
I t should, I hope, already be obvious f r o m this that Wittgenstein's later philosophy stands squarely in the expressivistic tradition, at least as far as its understanding o f persons and its critique o f duahsm and materialism is concerned. I want
to suggest, however, that this expressivisdc o u t l o o k is already present i n the
Tractatus, and, indeed, i n a metaphysically more ambitious way. I n his early work,
Wittgenstein sees, not just individual human beings, but the w o r l d as a whole i n
expressive terms. Anscombe puts the point nicely:
There is strong impression made by the end of the Tractatus, as if Wittgenstein
saw the world looking at him with a face...he speaks the world 'waxing and waning as
a whole i.e. in terms of my analogy, as having more or less expression, or good or evd
expressions, or a good or evU expression.'
I n seeing the w o r l d i n this way, Wittgenstein was following Schopenhauer. For

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b o t h o f them, the phenomenal w o r l d itself is expressive o f an underlying metaphysical reality that they call W i l l . Let us see what this means i n Schopenhauer's
work, before returning to Wittgenstein:
Schopenhauer was a K a n t i a n , and therefore held that the empiricial w o r l d of
causally related spatio-temporal substances existed only i n relation to the perceptual and conceptual apparatus o f conscious subjects. '"The w o r l d is my representation' : this is a t r u t h valid w i t h reference to every living and knowing being.
However, apart f r o m its phenomenal existence for us, the w o r l d exists i n itself.
Schopenhauer departs f r o m Kant's agnosticism about the thing-in-itself, identifying
it as force or energy or- as he, perhaps unfortunately, puts it - W i l l . I know myself i n
a quite d i f f e r e n t way f r o m any other object i n the phenomenal w o r l d - but I do not
know myself as pure m i n d or intellect, but primarily as w i l l , strife, desire.
Extrapolating f r o m this self-knowledge, I arrive at the conclusion that the inner
essence of all things is similarly a striving or energy, though i n most cases unaccompanied by consciousness. H e who Sees this,
will recognize that same will not only appears in those phenomena
that are quite similar to his own, in men and animals, as their innermost nature, but continued
reflection
will lead him to recognise the force that shoots and vegetates in the plant, indeed
the
force by which the crystal is formed... and finally even gravitation, which acts so powerfully in all matter, pulling the stone to the Earth and the Earth to the Sun; all these he
will recognise as different only in the phenomenon,
but the same according to their inner
nature. He will recognise them all as that which is immediately known to him so intimately and better than evetything else, and where it appears most distinctly is called will.^
Schopenhauer thus maintains a strongly anti-dualist outlook; my body is my w i l l ,
k n o w n f r o m the outside. Thus there is no causal nexus linking my acts o f w i l l and
my bodily movements; the act o f w i l l and the movement are one and the same, but
merely known i n d i f f e r e n t ways."* M o r e generally, the f o r m e r is perceived by us. Just
as my actions express my feelings, intentions and desires, so whatever happens i n
the phenomenal w o r l d expresses the restless striving o f the universal W i l l , (which
indeed my o w n w i l l is itself merely an expression of.)
Regarded as an explanatory theory, Schopenhauer's philosophy faces acute difficuldes. ( N o t , of course, that this distinguishes it f r o m any other philosophical
system.) H o w , is it, f o r instance, that the universal W i l l separates itself out into
numerous discrete perceivers, who then constitute the w o r l d as representation?
Especially considering that multiplicity is, as Schopenhauer stressed, only a feature
of the w o r l d as representation? H o w is it that the W i l l manages as it were to develop consciousness which can then look back on the indivisible reality of which they
are part? A n d how can the noumenal, which is outside time, be w i l l or striving? I t
is i n any case very d o u b t f u l whether, given his Kantian premises, Schopenhauer is
really entitled to go beyond Kant's agnosticism about the thing i n itself.
Regarded as an expressive vision, however, Schopenhauer's philosophy is enormously impressive, and it is not surprising that many of the greatest European w r i t -

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ers and artists or the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries were fascinated
by Schopenhauer. For his metaphysics is not -and was not supposed by h i m to be a strictly logical system, i n which conclusions f o l l o w f r o m indisputable premises w i t h
rigorous necessity. Rather it is based o n analogy between our o w n inner being and
that o f the w o r l d as a whole, that we may come to experience as compelling. I f one
comes to accept Schopenhauer's philosophy, it is not as the result of following a
purely logical chain o f deductions; it is through learning a new way o f seeing the
w o r l d . The familiar objects o f perception are no longer experienced as dead mechanisms, but as expressions o f the same restless striving that I feel w i t h i n myself.
The force that through

the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my

destroyer

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by same wintry fever. ^
II
There can be no doubt that Wittgenstein was influenced by Schopenhauer; the
1916 Notebook, where many o f the later propositions o f the Tractatus were first formulated, reads i n considerable measure as a dialogue w i t h Schopenhauer's vision o f
the w o r l d as a manifestation o f will.'"' I think Pears is wrong about this, and consequently wrong i n his interpretation o f the Tractatus as essentially reahstic. I n a 1916
Notebook entry, Wittgenstein writes: " I can also speak o f a w i l l that is c o m m o n to
the whole w o r l d . B u t this w i l l is i n a higher sense my w i l l . As my representation is
the w o r l d , i n the same way my w i l l is the w o r l d w i l l . " ( N B 85)^ This is why he can say
"The w o r l d and life are one" **and " I am my w o r l d ( the microcosm)" ( T L P 5.63).
Wittgenstein accepts Schopenhauer's distinction between the w o r l d as W i l l and the
w o r l d as Representation, but he differs i n the account he gives o f the latter. For
Wittgenstein, representation is essentially a linguistic matter; the w o r l d as it is f o r
us is the w o r l d as we represent it to ourselves i n propositions. Hence the main task
of the Tractatus is to explain the general f o r m o f the proposition -to set out basic
logical scaffolding u p o n which any language must be constructed. A n d this w i l l
determine how I w i l l see the w o r l d insofar as I think about language. Hence "the
limits o f language ( o f that language which alone I understand) mean the limits o f
my world." ( T L P 5.62) T o apprehend the w o r l d by means o f propositions that are
truth-functions o f elementary propositions, which are themselves structured assemblages o f simple signs, is to see the w o r l d as a concatenation o f contingent, mutually independent states o f affairs, these being combinations o f simple objects, which
are "unalterable and subsistent." ( T L P 2.0271)
T o give the essence o f a proposition means to give the essence all description,
and thus the essence o f the world." ( T L P 5.4711) H e r e we can clearly see the welding together o f two seemingly very different traditions o f thought which is one o f the
most fascinating features o f the Tractatus. T h a t the essence o f the proposition gives
us the essence o f all description is the Fregean "hnguistic turn", the move f r o m a

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psychological analysis o f thought to a logical analysis o f language. T h e second move,

f r o m the essence o f description to the essence o f the w o r l d , is the idealist - specifically Schopenhauerean - move. For the essence o f the w o r l d only follows f r o m the
essence o f the description o n the idealist assumption that the w o r l d has no reality
apart f r o m our description o f it. T h e ontology o f the Tractatus has always puzzled
the commentators; i t is simply a matter o f metaphysical luck that the w o r l d has this
structure o f any language. This seems embarrassingly implausible, and so some
commentators (e.g. McGuiness) have taken the ontology as merely an expository
myth, a way o f presenting the argument about the structure o f language. " A n object
i n the Tractatus, which is the reference o f a name or simple sign, can be viewed as
simply the truth-value potential o f a certain expression."'^
I think that this is more o n the right lines, but I w o u l d not describe the Tractatus
objects as mythical or as rhetorical fictions. Wittgenstein is concerned w i t h the
nature o f the w o r l d , not just the nature o f language, but it is the w o r l d as i t is f o r us
w h i c h he attempts to describe. A p p l y i n g the linguistic t u r n to the
Kant/Schopenhauer tradition, Wittgenstein gives us neither Rationalist ontology
(deducing the nature o f Reality i n itself f r o m the structure o f language) nor simply
description o f the structures o f language; he gives us an ontology, but one w h i c h is
relative to language. Since he thinks that there is a single specifiable essence o f language, this is an ontology which must be adopted by all language-users; there is no
conceivable rival w i t h which it might be compared. So, hke Kant, he avoids relativism and historicism by postulating a basic timeless universal structure o f representadon, which determines the way i n which we must interpret reality to ourselves.
T h e simple objects o f Wittgenstein's ontology then do exist, but not as things-inthemselves. Rather they are presupposed as comprising the basic structure o f the
w o r l d as (linguistic) representation.

Ill
T h e w o r l d , as it is f o r us, then, is a collection o f condngent facts. N o n e o f t h e m
has i n itself any necessity ( T L P 6.37) or value. ( T L P 6.41) A l l that literally meani n g f u l language can do is attempt to picture these facts. B u t Wittgenstein is an
expressivist, not a positivist; f o r h i m , what cannot be stated or apprehended as factual, may nevertheless "make itself manifest" i n and through the facts. T h e doctrine
of "showing" as opposed to saying, originated as a logical one. The very first sentence i n the Notebooks

is "Logic must take care o f itself." ( N B 2) This is (almost)

repeated at T L P 5.473, and at T L P 4.0312 Wittgenstein tells us that his "fundamental idea" is 'that the logical constants' are not representations". Logic is not a
description o f any reality - it must take care o f itself because there is no independent reality corresponding to i t which could take care o f it. Logic is radically d i f f e r ent f r o m factual discourse. I f logic were - as Frege and Russell had but thoughtdescriptive o f a realm o f facts, no matter how abstract, it could not have the
necessity i t does. A n y reality - any set o f facts- is contingent, it could be other than

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it is. B u t logic cannot be about any set o f facts, because it is prior to all facts. I t is
the condition o f factuahty.
A statement cannot be concerned with the logical structure of ihe world, for in
order for a statement
BLE

of making

to be possible

SENSE,

at all, in order for a proposition

to be

the world must already have the logical structure

it has. The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.

CAPAthat

(NB 14)

Logical propositions do not describe logical facts; they are merely tautologies.
( T L P 6.1) Logic, as something set out i n textbooks, is part of the ladder that we
must kick away once we have climbed up beyond it to enlightenment ( T L P 6.54).
"Logic is not a body o f doctrine", it is "transcendental".(TLP 6.13)
The K a n t i a n w o r d here is interesting. I n the Notebooks
Wittgenstein calls b o t h
ethics and logic "conditions of the w o r l d " ( N B 77). A n d it is primarily these that can
be shown, but not said. A s James Edwards has put i t , "showing is an escape hatch
f r o m the realm o f nonsense."^" The things that can't be shown, but said are those
expressions i n literally m e a n i n g f u l language which are ruled out by the Tractatus'
highly restrictive theory o f meaning, yet which cannot be discarded as simply
absurd.^^ W e can only speak o f contingencies, but neither ethics nor logic can be
treated as contingent. They are therefore to be regarded not as facts w i t h i n the
world, but as limits or conditions o f it. A n d those conditions are not wholly ineffable; they can be indicated.
Logical f o r m cannot itself be spoken o f directly. B u t it expresses itself i n the
ordinary propositions of our language. A n y banal everyday remark anyone makes
already makes manifest what logical f o r m is, f o r "all the prepositions of our everyday language, just as they stand, are i n perfect logical order." ( T L P 5.5563) One cannot talk about logic, since any talking already presupposes logic.
Propositions cannot represent logical fonn: it is mirrored in them.
What finds its expression in language, language cannot
represent.
What expresses ITSELF in language. We cannot represen t by means of language.
They display it. (TLP 4.121)
Wittgenstein refers here to the logical f o r m "of reahty", not just o f language.
This is, as I have argued above, reality as apprehended i n language, the w o r l d as
(hnguistic) representation. Because description is linguistic, and logic is the essence
of language, it follows that logic is the transcendental condition f o r the W o r l d as
Representation; and precisely f o r that reason, it is not something that can itself be
represented, it must be left to make itself manifest i n the logical structure o f the
w o r l d as we apprehend it linguistically.
IV
fJowever, the n o t i o n o f showing does not only apply to the logical f o r m propositions showing themselves i n those propositions showing themselves. I t also applies
to the sense of life showing itself i n the facts o f the world. For Wittgenstein, as f o r

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Schopenhauer, the w o r l d as i t really is, the w o r l d as W i l l , makes itself manifest i n

the w o r l d as Representation. T h e facts are i n themselves without value, b u t i f they
are seen together, sub specie aetemi, ( T L P 6.45) they can be seen as expressing the
underlying noumenal W i l l . I n the Notebooks, Wittgenstein - here departing radically f r o m Schopenhauer - identifies the W i l l as divine. " H o w things stand is
G o d , G o d is how things stand." ( N B 79) However, Wittgenstein does n o t simply
identify G o d w i t h the totality o f facts; rather. H e is what they express. W h e n one
sees the facts together i n the right way, one sees them as the manifestation o f the
divine w i l l .
I n the Tractatus itself, he seems to distinguish sharply between G o d and the
world, ''How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world." ( T L P 6.432) W h a t I think this means is
that G o d cannot be thought o f as one being amongst others (even i f the "Supreme
Being"); H e cannot be seen as revealed more in any one fact or set of facts than another. I t is the w o r l d as a whole, rather than any set o f facts i n it, which manifests G o d .
The facts all contribute only to setting the problem, not to its solution.
It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.
To view the world sub specie aetemi is to view it as a whole - a limited
whole.
Feeling the world as a limited whole -it is this which is mystical. (TLP 6.4321
6.445)
T o feel the w o r l d as a l i m i t e d whole is to be aware o f another dimension o f reality by which the phenomenal w o r l d is limited. "The solution o f the riddle o f life i n
space and time lies outside space and time." ( T L P 6.4312) F o r Schopenhauer and
Kant, the noumenal lies outside space and time. I f I am right that Wittgenstein
identifies G o d w i t h Schopenhauer's noumenal W i U , then G o d is indeed beyond
time and space, and beyond the limits o f a language which can only denote contingent facts. B u t this whole w o r l d which are experienced as a concatenation
o f contingencies is, i n its deepest essence, identical w i t h the divine w i l l . G o d is not, therefore, apart f r o m the w o r l d . O f course, according to the Tractatus itself we can't say
that. Nevertheless, i t can make itself manifest to us; that is, we can come to experience the w o r l d "mystically", as an expression o f God's w i l l . This is not a matter o f
seeing any particular fact(s) differently, b u t o f seeing them all together and recognising their pattern as expressive o f something that could n o t be seen i n anyone
individually. A s one may step back f r o m an apparently r a n d o m array o f dots, and
see the picture o f a face. ("... as i f Wittgenstein saw the w o r l d looking at h i m w i t h a
face") Wittgenstein's o u t l o o k at the time o f the Tractatus could be called "pantheistic"; the facts o f the w o r l d are n o t just seen as brute facts, b u t as expressive o f the
divine w i l l and, as such, to be accepted w i t h equanimity whatever they may be.
I f the w o r l d is the manifestation o f a divine, noumenal w i l l , what o f the h u m a n
will? W i t t g e n s t e i n distinguishes between the w i l l , what o f the h u m a n will?
Wittgenstein distinguishes between the w i l l " as a phenomenon... o f interest to psychology" ( T L P 6.423) and the ethical w i l l , which is not o f interest to any science.

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12]

since it cannot really be spoken of. What does this distinction amount to? I n the
Notebooks, Wittgenstein writes:
The thinking subject is surely mere illusion. But the willing subject exists.
If the will did not exist, neither would there be that centre of the world, which we
call the I and which is the bearer of ethics. (NB 80)
The rejected thinking subject is the Cartesian soul. There is no such unitary
thing; just a set o f discrete, though causally related thoughts. B u t Wittgenstein's
premises no more allow f o r a wilhng than f o r a thinking subject i n the w o r l d . So the
wilhng subject that is a f f i r m e d can only be a hmit of the w o r l d . For Wittgenstein the
will is essentially connected to ethics. " I w i l l call "will" first and foremost the bearer
of good and evil" ( N B 76) A few days later he adds, "Good and evil only enter
through the subject. A n d the subject is not a part of the w o r l d , but a boundary of
the world." ( N B 79) So we have the notion o f the wilhng subject, the bearer of good
and evil, as the l i m i t o f the w o r l d .
What does this mean? Wittgenstein rejects the Cartesian self, but doesn't draw
the H u m e a n conclusion that all there is,is a bundle of discrete mental facts.
Admittedly, that is all there is i n the (phenomenal) w o r l d , but there is also the condition of there being a phenomenal w o r l d at all- the Transcendental Ego. This is not
a fact i n the w o r l d , but the "fact" ( or meta-fact?) that the world is experienced- and
therefore experienced as a concatenation o f contingent atomic facts- at all. This is,
of course, yet another o f the things that cannot hterally be said at all. W h e n we
attempt to articulate i t , we f a l l into the incoherent doctrine o f solipsism. B u t solipsism is significant nonsense; "What the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said but makes itself manifest" ( T L P 5.62) A s phenomena; ourselves; we are
just small and insignificant parts o f the w o r l d . B u t we are not just phenomena; it is
only i n us that the phenomenal w o r l d is constituted at all. W e are not just objects i n
the w o r l d , f o r each o f us plays the role of the Transcendental Ego, or as
Schopenhauer puts i t , "the Subject", which is
that which knows all things and is known by none... the supporter of the world, the
universal condition of all objects, and is always presupposed...
Everyone finds
himself
as this subject, yet only insofar as he knows, riot insofar as he is object of knowledge.
As the last sentence makes clear "the subject" f o r Schopenhauer denotes not an
individual - a mysterious world-constituting entity- but a function. The subject is
each of us, considered just barely as a knowing and sensing m i n d . I t only takes one
such m i n d , equipped w i t h the K a n t i a n array o f a p r i o r i forms o f i n t u i t i o n and categories, to constitute the w o r l d as Representation; f o r that simply is the noumenal
world, as i t is k n o w n by such a m i n d .
Wittgenstein is thus f o l l o w i n g this Kantian-Schopenhaueran hne when he
writes, "The subject does not belong to the w o r l d , rather, it is a limit of the world."
( T L P 5.632) I t is however, rather peculiar that Wittgenstein rejected the thinking
subject while retaining the willing. There is neither a thinking nor a wilhng subject

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122

in the w o r l d , but there is the metaphysical subject, as the hmit o f the w o r l d . A n d this
subject, i t seems, b o t h thinks and wills. I n the f o r m e r role it constitutes the w o r l d as
Representation, i n the later it adopts an attitude towards it. Hence the pronouncement, " Ethics must be a condition o f the w o r l d , like logic." ( N B 77) Ethics is the
condition

o f the w o r l d viewed by the w i l h n g subject, logic that o f the w o r l d , but an

attitude that is taken towards the w o r l d as whole. A n d it is this that can be the subject o f ethics. Acts o f w i l l , like thoughts, actions or any other facts, are all o n the
same level; they are w i t h o u t value, they just are. ( T L P 6.41) I f we are to have a place
for ethics, i t cannot be w i t h i n the pattern o f facts that comprises the w o r l d , but only
in the f u n d a m e n t a l attitude we adopt towards the w o r l d .
If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the
limits of the world, not the facts - not what can be expressed by means of
In short, the effect must be that it becomes

language.

an altogether different world. It must,

so to speak, wax and wane as a whole.

The world o f the happy man is different f r o m that of the unhappy man. ( T L P 6.43)
I n talking o f happiness and unhappiness here, Wittgenstein is not just giving an
example; the words have a particular meaning f o r h i m . " I n order to live happily, I
must be in agreement w i t h the w o r l d . A n d that is what being happy M E A N S " ( N B
75) T h e happy man is one w h o accepts whatever comes his way as the w i l l o f G o d ,
who is thus able to be content, come what may. The unhappy man is one whose
striving bring h i m into conflict w i t h the way things are; he cannot accept the w o r l d
however it may be. Rather, as soon as things start to go wrong f o r h i m - and n o t h ing he can ever do can guarantee that they wiU not- he experiences the w o r l d as
oppressive. The facts seem to be h e m m i n g h i m in, stifling him; the "face" w i t h which
the w o r l d looks out at h i m has become menacing, ugly.
I shaU not attempt to provide an estimate of this Stoical quietism that
Wittgenstein recommends as an ethical outlook, though it seems to have some
obvious and worrying flaws. A l t h o u g h Wittgenstein accepts the noumenal W i l l as
divine, while Schopenhauer considers i t the source o f endless suffering and misery,
the two philosophers b o t h recommend a rather similar ethical stance. F o r b o t h , to
w i l l particular things is to expose oneself to the misery o f having one's personal w i l l ,
by accepting whatever fate brings; Schopenhauer also commends the abandonment
of willing, but notes that f o r being which is essentially will, this is tantamount to selfannihilation.
I have been talking about an expressive vision o f things. B u t is this the n o r m a l
way we experience the w o r l d , at least when we r e f r a i n f r o m blinding ourselves w i t h
scientistic or metaphysical philosophies, or is it a k i n d o f rare, visionary experience?
For Wittgenstein, to be happy or unhappy are b o t h expressive responses to the
w o r l d ; the facts, when taken together as a whole, are seen not just as neutral and
value free, but as providing a significant context f o r my life. Schopenhauer w o u l d
presumably be an example o f an unhappy man whose w i l l is not i n agreement w i t h

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the w o r l d ; he sees it as significant, as expressive - but expressive of a horror and

destructiveness. F r o m which he recoils. But it also seems that there can be an experience o f the w o r l d that is expressively dead- one i n which it is simply seen as a collection o f brute facts. "The w o r l d of the happy is a happy w o r l d . Then can there be
a w o r l d that is neither happy nor unhappy ?" ( N B 78) The growth of scientific rationahsm and industrialisation have brought about what Weber called "disenchantment" of the w o r l d , the tendency to simply see it as a dead mechanism, a collection
of value-free facts, as a stockpile o f resources to be exploited. I t was o f course against this process and its intellectual reflection i n the philosophy of the Enlightenment
that the Romantic expressivists were reacting. Wittgenstein was not a Romantic, but
he frequently expressed his sense of distaste f o r and unease i n contemporary civilisation. H e had a strong primitivist, Tolstoyan streak, which led h i m to w o r k as a
doctor, even a manual labourer, i n some remote part of Russia.'^ I n this, he belongs
to a p o w e r f u l current i n post-Romantic Western sensibility, which has sought to
escape f r o m the false sophistications o f society and to recover a fresher, more p r i mordial vision o f things, ( c f . the widespread fascination with primitive art at the
beginning o f this century, and its influence o n artists like Picasso and Matisse;
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring ; D . H . Lawrence's "savage pilgrimage" to non-European
cultures; Surrealism-the list could be considerably extended.)
I t is indeed to art that we w o u l d normally think of turning i n order to give an
expressive enrichment to our experience.In the T r a c / m ^ - W i t t g e n s t e i n at this time
defends simply a matter of the attitude one adopts to the w o r l d - this suggests that
aesthetics is also concerned w i t h experiencing things i n the right spirit. H e talks of
seeing things sub specie aeternitatis " I n such a way that they have the whole w o r l d as
background." ( N B 83) Aesthetic perception sees even trivial and ugly things i n away
that invests them w i t h significance. I think one can say that aesthetic contemplation
considers things i n their o w n right; not as a members o f a class, not as useful f o r this
or that purpose, but simply as being, and as being what they are.
/ / / have been contemplating
the stove, and then am told: but now all you know
is the stove, my result does indeed seem trival For this represents the matter as
if I had studied the stove as one among the many things in the world. But if I was
contemplating
the stove, IT was my world, and everything else colourless by contrast with it. (NB 83)
One may contemplate a stove aesthetically, but one may also turn to art. A successful w o r k of art, one might say, forces us to perceive it aesthetically. As
Tilghman, to whose discussion o f Wittgenstein's aesthetics I am indebted, puts it:
the w o r k o f art selects an object, a scene, a situation and makes that object stand
sdll to be contemplated and i n so doing treats the object as i f it were a w o r l d unto
itself so that it becomes my world and a representative

of the whole.

This attitude, at once ethical, "mystical" and aesthetic, is, I think, central to the
aim o f the Tractatus,

an carries through, i n altered ways to the later work.

Schopenhauer & Wittgenstein: the Unsayable

124

Wittgenstein's attack o n explanation is aimed at recovering a freshness o f response

to the w o r l d that the scientific attitude seems to block. I believe that this - the opening up o f the possibility o f expressive vision, which should be our n o r m a l response
to the w o r l d but w h i c h is occluded i n our culture- is what Wittgenstein has i n m i n d
when he writes o f transcending the propositions o f the Tractatus i n order to "see the
w o r l d aright". ( T L P 6.54)
Notes
' G.E.M. Anscombe, An introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Hutchinson, London,
1959) 172
^A Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (trans E.F.J. Payne, Dover
Publications, New York, 1969) V o l 1, 3
^Ibid, I , 110
^ These ideas perhaps had some influence on Wittgenstein's later philosophy. I n the
Notebooks 1914-16 Wittgenstein did develop an account of agency along these
Schopenhauerean lines, but concludes by saying that it "makes it look as if some part of
the world were closer to me than another (which would be intolerable.)" (Notebooks
1914-16, trans G E . M . Anscombe (Blackwell, Oxford, 2nd ed, 1979) 88( Subsequent references to this work will be indicated by "NB" in the text.) Accordingly, in the Tractatus
itself he gives a much more Cartesian sounding account of the relation between will and
act as a contingent causal one. ( TLP 6.373-6.375)
^ Dylan Thomas, 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'in Poems,
(ed D. Jones, Everyman, J:M. Dent and Sons, London, 1982) 77
' D . Pears, The False Prison, Vol.1 ( Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987) 5
' I have altered Anscombe's translation of Vorstellung in this passage from "idea" to "representation", in order to conform with Payne's usage in his Schopenhauer translations.
^ Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans B: McGuiness and D. Pears, Routledge and Kegan
Paul, London, 1961) 5.621. Subsequent references will be indicated as "TLP" in the text.
''B McGuiness, 'the So-called Realism of the Tractatus' in Block (ed) Perspectives on the
Philosophy of Wittgenstein ( Blackwell, Oxford, 1981 65
^"J. Edwards, Ethics Without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (University
Presses of Florida, Tampa, 1982) 15
"The standard that Wittgenstein is operating with a category and always simply uses
"nonsense" to mean simply gibberish. See her The Realistic Spirit ( M I T Press,
Cambridge Mass, 1991) esp Chs 3,6 and 8. I don't have space to consider her account
here; for some effective criticism, see D . Hutto and J. Lippit, 'Making Sense of
Nonsense: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein' (pas 1998). I shall take it in what follows that
"nonsense" does not always just mean gibberish for Wittgenstein; in particular, he clearly does not want to dismiss ethics and religion as simply absurd, but at the time of the
Tractatus he did describe them as "nonsense". These facts can hardly be reconciled
unless we do admit some category of "significant nonsense", and then there can be no
objection in principle to extending the category further.
The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1, 5
'^R. Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. ( The Free Press, Macmillan, New
York, 1990) 347-54
'^B.R Tilghman, Wittgenstein, Ethics and Aesthetics: The View From Eternity (Macmillan,
Basingstoke and London, 1991) 54