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Eye & Mind The IDSVA Journal of Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2012

TO TELL A RIDDLE:
Metaphysics, Aesthetics and Ethics in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Michael R. Smith, Jr.

At this point we must take a leap into the metaphysics of art by reiterating our earlier contention that
this world can be justiMied only as an esthetic phenomenon.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music

I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only
as a poetic composition.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Culture and Value

There are probably few philosophers who were more endowed with such a keen aesthetic sense of the p

possibility of philosophical language as Wittgenstein was. Perhaps only Nietzsche exceeds him in this respec

Regardless of whether such an assertion can be substantiated or not, I should very much like to take seriousl

claim that we cannot entirely understand the better part of what Wittgenstein has to say unless we read him
approaching the philosophical discourse Mirst and foremost as a form of poetic composition. [1] Some of
Wittgensteins commentators, unfortunately, have regarded this suggestion as more-or-less superMluous.
author is Peter Carruthers. Anyone can see, he notes, that the Tractatus:

is a work of extraordinary beauty; yet what makes it attractive is partially responsible for its obscurit
Firstly, because it is written in the style of pithy aphorism, without properly developed explanations o
its own doctrines. And secondly, because it is mostly presented in the form of oracular statements,
without supporting arguments. . . . Such a mode of writing serves no one well. In attempting to ride
two horses at once (truth and beauty), it risks falling between them. In philosophy it is clarity and
explicitness that matter above all. For only what is plainly stated can be reliably assessed for truth.

This assessment of the Tractatus is unfortunately all too common of overly analytic interpretations, all of wh
and large, fail to grasp the essential importance that aesthetics plays in the communication of ideas.
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4/29/12 8:43 PM