I would love to have witnessed a famous moment in intellectual history: when the Vienna Circle met Wittgenstein.
The Vienna Circle was made up of mathematicians and scientists. Most were Positivists, meaning they were looking for a coherent way to state the case that science is about what really is, and that other talk — talk of arts, literature, music, aesthetics, ethics, religion, etc. — is nonsense.
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus offered possibilities, they thought, in providing a theory that would divide the sheep from the goats.
When they invited Wittgenstein, the members of the Circle indeed found a person who could articulate why scientific propositions can be expressed in verifiable terms and other matters of human interest cannot.
They were delighted with Wittgenstein’s ability to illuminate the distinction between these two kinds of human activity.
They were appalled as they gradually realized that he thought they were focused on the least important kind.
Presuming to speak for Wittgenstein is hubris, but I think this is fair: Wittgenstein thought that science was an enormously important human activity. But not the most important, and not the most interesting.
I’m telling this story because, in our times, a lot of students — and teachers — are giving up on the humanities.
It’s a story I wish more people knew.
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