[ExI] Wittgenstein's Other, More Important Work

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Thu Mar 27 06:24:33 UTC 2008


Ludwig wrote

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein <ludwigw at WienerKreis.de>
To: Ludwig Ficker <ludwigficker at WienerKreis.de>
Cc: lcorbin at rawbw.com; mschlicht at ViennaCircle.com
Sent: November 7, 1919  2:38 PM
Subject: The Line I Should Have Written in Tractatus Preface

> [Regarding Tractatus] the book's point is an ethical one. I once
> meant to include in the preface a sentence which is not in fact
> there now, but which I will write out for you here, because
> it will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant
> to write, then, was this: My work consists of two parts: the
> one presented here plus all that I have not written. And
> *it is precisely this second part that is the important one*.
> My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the
> inside, as it were, and I am convinced that this is the
> ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. 

[Janik & Toulmin, 1973,. p. 192, as I quote from
http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~chip/pubs/speaking.shtml]

Good heavens!  What an *out*!   Why didn't any author before
Wittgenstein have the witt to have thought of this!?   For, not only
do we have to credit Wittgenstein with what he did say, but we
must also credit him for all the unfathomable wisdom in what
he did *not* say!   Indeed, the man was a genius.

Lee




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