Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T16:07:54.569Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

II - The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Stanley Cavell
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

Epochs are in accord with themselves only if the crowd comes into these radiant confessionals which are the theatres or the arenas, and as much as possible, … to listen to its own confessions of cowardice and sacrifice, of hate and passion … For there is no theatre which is not prophecy. Not this false divination which gives names and dates, but true prophecy, that which reveals to men these surprising truths: that the living must live, that the living must die, that autumn must follow summer, spring follow winter, that there are four elements, that there is happiness, that there are innumerable miseries, that life is a reality, that it is a dream, that man lives in peace, that man lives on blood; in short, those things they will never know.

—Jean Giraudoux

In June of 1929 Wittgenstein was awarded a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, having returned to England, and to philosophy, less than a year earlier. His examiners were Russell and Moore, and for his dissertation he had submitted his Tractatus, published some seven or eight years earlier, written earlier than that, and now famous. The following month, he refused to read a paper (“Some Remarks on Logical Form”) which he had prepared for the joint session of the Mind Association and Aristotelian Society, and which obviously goes with the ideas he had worked out in the Tractatus.

Type
Chapter
Information
Must We Mean What We Say?
A Book of Essays
, pp. 44 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×