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[Ge|Mr] Chairman, Ladies & Gentlemen!Before I begin to speak about my subject proper let me say a few introductory words. I feel there that I will be have very great difficulties in communicating the thoughts which I want to communicate, to you & I want to mention some of these difficulties because I think that ⌊this⌋ they can may possibly thereby be diminished ˇthem. The first I will mention – but which is I believe ☐ by no means the greatest – is that, as you, know English is not my native language & my expression will therefore not be as clear & precise as it would be desirable when one has something very difficult to communicate. Please help me in my task of making myself understood by abstracting overlooking as much as possible from the faults against the English grammar which will constanty occur in my speech. The second difficulty which I will mention is t seams to me to be by far more serious & to explane it I must tell you why I have chosen the subject which I have chosen. W⌊h⌋en your former secretary honourd me by asking me to read a paper to your society the first thought that came in⌊to⌋ my head was that I would certainly do it & the second was this: I said to myself that [I|i]f I hade the opportunity of talking to a room full of II
people that I would use this
opportunity to say something that comes
from my heart & not to
[ill|mis]use
the time that I was give to speak
to you [to|by] either explan⌊ing⌋ some
scientific matter to you which to
be propperly explained wou⌊l⌋d needs a
course of lectures or an audience
specialy trained in one particular line of
thought & that I would still less
[ill|mis]use this oppotunity of speaking to you by giving you
a popular lecture, say on logic,
which would serve to make you
believe that you understand a
thing w⌊h⌋ich as a matter of fact
you dont understand (& which it is
not a bit neccessary that you
should) & to gratifie the very lowest
of modern desires viz. the superficial
curiosity about the latest discoveries
of
III
matter in such a way that the hearer at
once sees the ways roads he is lead & the
[E|e]nd goal to which it leads. That is to say
it so very often happens that
the hearer thinks ⌊“⌋I understand
perfectly what he
IV
synonyms so far ˇat any rate as th⌊e⌋i⌊r⌋s meaning is
important to us and by enumerating
them I want to produce the same
sort of effect that Gallstone
produced when he copied a number of
different faces on the same
photographic plate in order to get the
picture of the typical features
they all have in comon. And
as by
V.
very different senses: I will call them
the relat⌊i⌋ve & the absolutec ˇor ethical
6
a great conn[a|o]isseur of pianoplaying
heard me & said, Well your playing
pretty badly & suppose I answerd,
him: I know I'm playing badly
but I dont want to play any
better. All the connaisseur could
say would be well then that's all
right, & there would be an end to
the discussion. The connaisseur would
have judged me by certain
standarts which he could ˇif neccessary explain & I
would aggree that he had ranked
me wrightly.
Now take another case
suppose I had told one of you a
preposterous ly
& this man came to
me & said look here you have
behaved like a beast. & now I
were to answer [I|Y]es I know I ☐behaved
badly but then I didnt want
to behave ˇany better. [C|W]ould he then say
ththen thats all right? Obviously
not. He would say well you ought
to want to behave better. The
difference was that this man was making
an
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road I can say equaly well this is
the road that leeds me to where
I want to go. This is a good
pianoplayer simly means that he can
play peaces of a certain degree of
complicatedness in a certain definable
way. To say the [V|v]iolor has a good
voice means it has a Tone agreable
to the ear & so on. Now what I
wish to contend is this that although
all relative judgment can be shewn
to be statements of facts no
statement of fact can ever be or
imply what we call an absolute
that is ethical judgment. Let
me explain this like this: Suppose
that one of you or I was an omnicient
person who therefore knew all the
movements of all the bodies in the wo[r|l]d,
dead or alive who further knew & could describe all
the states of minds of all human
beings that ever were & suppose that
this omnicient person wrote all
he knew, that is everything that
is to be known, in a big book. Then
this book would contain the whole
description of the world. And what
I want to say is that this book
would ˇthen not contain anything that
we [c|w]ould call an absolute ethical
judjment of value or anything that
would ˇdirectly [e|i]mply such a judgment. It
would of course contain all
relat⌊i⌋ve judgments of value as for
8 IV
instance that so & so is a good ˇor a bad runner
for it would contain the fact
that he ran
If for instance in our world book ˇwe read the description of an appalling murder is described in all the details physical &
9
10
will only express facts as a teacup
will only hold a teacup full
of water & ⌊if⌋ I was to
11
abo[s|l]ute good, absolute value etc what
have they in mind & what do we try
to express? Now whenever I try
to make this clear to m[e|y]self it is
natural that I should try to
recall what use I in which cases
I would particularly certainly use
these expressions & I am then in
the situation in which you would
be if for instance I were to
give you a lecture, say, on the
psycology of pleasure. What you would
do then would be to try and recall
some typical situation in which you
allways felt pleasure, for, bearing
this situation in mind, you all which
I would have to say to you about
pleasure would become concrete &,
as it where, controlabel.
One man
would for instance chuse as his stock
example of pleasure the sensation whic
he has when taking a walk on a fime
summers morning & or any ˇsome such occasion. Now
in this situation I am if I want to
fix my mind on what I mean by absolute
or ethical value. And there in my case
it allways happens that the idea of one
particular experience presents itself
to m[e|y] ˇmind which therefore is for me in a
sense the experience par ex⌊c⌋elence &
this is the reason why in talking to you now
I ⌊(⌋will always⌊)⌋ referr to this experience
particularly I am using
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is realy a personal matter & others
would find other examples more
striking) The experience the which
I'm talking about
I will describe
this experience in order if possible
to make you recall to your minds
the same or similar experiences
so that we may have a common
ground for our investigation. Now the
best way of describing
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that I wonder at something being the
case. I
We all understand what
it means when I say that I wonder
at a dog which is bigger than any ◇◇◇ dog
I have ever seen before or at any
other thing which in the common sense
of the word is „extraordinary”. In every
such case I wonder ab something being
the case which I could conceive not
to be the case. I wonder at the size
of t⌊h⌋is dog because I could conceive
of a dog of another namely the ordinay
size at which I would not wonder.
To [I|s]ay I wonder at such & such
being the case has only sense if
I can immagine it not to be the case.
In this sense one can wonder at the
existence of say a house
when one sees it &
hasnt
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that its nonsense to say that one
wonders at a tautolog[ie|y]. The verbal
expression do whith it what I may
remains nonsense & I think it
is essential that it should do
so. Now the same applies to that
other experience which I have mentioned
the experience of being safe
absolute
safety. We all know what it means
in ordinary life to be safe. I am
sa☐fe in my rooms when I cannt be
run over by an Omnibus. I am safe
if I have had whooping cough once
& cannt therefore have it again. That is to be
safe essentialy means that it is
phys⌊i⌋cally
15
what we mean is not what we mean ˇby right when
we say this is the right road to
Granchester its something similar &
when we say this is a good fellow
we dont mean it in the same sense
as when we say he is a good
footballplayer but there is some similar⌊ity⌋
And when we say th[is|e] Life of this
man was valuable we dont mean
it in the same sense as when we say
this piece of ju[w|v]elery is valuable but
there se[a|e]ms to be some sort of
connection. Now all religious terms & notions
seem in this sense to be used as
simil[ei|e]s or alegorical. For when we
speak of God & that he sees & hears
everything & when we pra kneel & pray to
him it
16
by the p⌊h⌋rase that God disaprooves of our
conduct. Now the three experiences
which I have mentioned I have said
that whenever we describe ethical
or religious experiences we seem to
use language only to make up similes.
N But a simile must be the simile
for something & if I can express a
fact by means of a simile I must
also be able to drop the simile and
to explain the facts without it. Now
what happens to us in this case is
that as soon as we try to drop the
simile & try to state simply the facts
that stand behind them We find
that there are no such facts. And so
what at first appeard to be similes
now seems to be mere nonsense.
Now the three experiences which I
mentioned before (and I could have
added
17 a fact should have an absolute value.
And I will make the point still more
acute by saying, that ˇan experience a fact schould
have a supernatural value.
Now the
way I would be tempted at first
to meet this paradox is this: Let
me consider again the Experience of
wondering at existence & let me
describe it in a slighly different way: We all
know what in ordinary life would
be called a mira[kal|cle]: It obviously is
simply an event which the like of which
we have never yet seen. Now suppose
such an event happened. Take the case
that one of you suddenly grew a lions
head & began to roaring certainly thats
as extraordinary a thing as I can
¤
[There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so] immagine. Now whenever we would have recovered from our surprise what I would suggest is to fech a physiologist & have the case scientifically investigated & if it were not for being afraid of hurting him I'lld have him vivisected. And where would the miracle have gone to, for it is clear that looking at it in this way everything miraculous has disappeared unless what we mean by miraculous is merely that a fact☐ has not jet been explanied by science wh⌊i⌋ch again means ˇmerely th[t|a]t 18
we have hitherto failed to group this
fact with others in a scientific
system. But [t|T]his means that it
has no sense to say „scien[s|c]e has
prooved that there are no mira[k|c]les”.
No: the scientific way of looking
at a fact is not the way to look at
it as a miracle. For immagine whatever
fact you may, it is not in itself a
miracle in the absolute sense & there
[ar|on]e is in itself not not more or less
mira[k|c]uleus than the other.
I • heard ↺once
[in|a]
preacher in a Cambridge Church say
that of course there were still mira[k|c]les
happening only look at the tiny little
seed from which a trees grows. But
is this more is wrong for is this more
mira[k|c]ul[e|o]us than that a stone falls
or in fact any thing which happens
whatever happens! Again we see that
we have used the term miracle in
a relative & an absolute sense. In
the rolative sense it simply meant
a hitherto unknown kind of event.
well that's a trivial meaning. But
when we are tempted to use it in
what I would like to [k|c]all a deep
19
what I then called to wonder at
the existence of the world I
might have equaly well described
by saying to regard to
as the experience of look⌊ing⌋ ˇ◇◇◇ at
existens as a mira[k|c]le. Now I am
tempted to say that the ˇright
expression in language for the miracle
of the existence of the world is the
miracle of the existence of language
but this would not account for
a fact being important the absolute
importance of but what ◇◇◇
does it mean to notice that this
miracle some times & not at other times?
For of course the expression „miracle
at the For all I have said by
shifting the expression of the miraculous
from [i|a]n expression by means of
language to the expression by
the existence of language, all
I have said is again that we
can not express what we want to
express & that all we say about it
20
& that is to say that my contention
in the beginning of this paper when I
said that no describable fact
could ˇever be or imply an absolute judgment
was wrong. Now when this is urged
against me I say ⌊(⌋immediately⌊)⌋ see perfectly
clearly as it where in a flash of light,
not only that no description that
could I can think of would do
to describe significantly these
experiences, but that I would
reject every explanation that
anybody could possibly suggest ˇab initio
on the ground of its significance.
That is to say: I see now that
these nonsensical expressions were
not nonsensical bec[o|a]use I had not
jet found the significant
21
science, that is to say what it
sa⌊i⌋ys does not add to our knowledge
in any sense. But it is a document
which I of a tendency in the human
mind which I person⌊a⌋ly cannot help
respecting deeply & I would not
for my life ridicul it. |
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⌊⌊
Galstonsche Photogr. Sense of life, what makes life worth living Worth. Value, importance⌋⌋ Ethic is the enquiry into what is good. Ethic is the enquiry into what is valuable. Ethic is if anything the natural science of value. Distinction between relative & absolute value. Examples. Statements of relat⌊i⌋ve value, goodness or importance are statement of facts which are in no way problematic. [K|C]ontrast to judgments of absolute value. Att⌊i⌋tude of the Judge to the judged. No Statement of fact is or implies an absolute judgment. Science & the whole realm of propositions contains no absolute no ethical judgment. Still let us investigate such absolute judgments & that we can only do by investigating the cases where we are tempted to make absolute judgements. I will describe an experience which I allways must think about when I want to know what I mean by ◇◇◇ absolute importance. The experience of wondering at the world at the Existence of the World. Let us analyse this verbal expression of my experience. It is nonsense. Expression of existence & possibility ¤ |
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1) Ms-139a, page 10v contains a sketchy drawing which is not included in the transcription. The drawing is accompanied by text that is difficult to decipher, possibly: "The order of even[ts]","Will","Fr[eedom]".
To cite this element you can use the following URL:
BOXVIEW: http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/BTE/Ms-139a_d