Introduction Ludwig Wittgenstein, a well celebrated analytic philosopher, is widely remembered for his remarkable works in the history of philosophy, especially in regard to setting a turning point in the course of the history of philosophy. He was with the very different personality and his writings were entirely different from the usual. He wrote two books in his life time, but one only got published while he was alive and the other got published posthumously after his death. His first book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is about the limitation of the language, about distinction between what can be expressed and what cannot be expressed, about the identification of language and reality, and about the exclusion of Metaphysics, Ethics and Theology from the main stream of philosophy, because of their characteristic of being ineffable. His second work, Philosophical Investigations, primarily talks about the distinction between language and reality and in a more specific way that language does not have meaning but it has the use. It says that language has meaning in its use governed by its rules. The theme of both the works can be encapsulated as follows: What cannot be said is the major theme of the Tractatus, and what all can be said is the theme of the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein was not only a mystic in his life but also implicitly as well as explicitly dealt about mystical in his works. Generally scholars confirm that mystical ideas are found in his first work, while they are absent in the second. On the contrary, I perceive that even his second work contains mystical elements. I limit myself to just expose the mystical elements in his life and character and in his both works; and I try to connect the mysticism that is found in his two works and establish its continuity, progress and maturity. First and foremost, to establish that Wittgenstein was a mystic in his life is a milestone in the process of the given task. The second target of the paper is to pursue the connection between Tractatus’ mysticism and the mysticism of Philosophical Investigations. My reasoning is not oriented towards looking for the texts in both the books that directly speak about mysticism even though I refer texts that contain mystical elements, but rather to go behind the texts and look into the style, intention, more specifically the character and mind of the author as Schleiermacher and Dilthey insist in their hermeneutics, in order to establish the transition of his mysticism from Apophatic to Kataphatic. There are pseudo-propositions in Tractatus that according to Wittgenstein lead one to nonsense, because they do not represent possible facts. But Diamond says that by imaginative act the Tractarian pseudo-propositions can lead one to understand not the sentence as nonsense, but to understand the author of those sentences, i.e., Wittgenstein.[i] We try to understand imaginatively the psychological elements of pseudo-propositions in Tractatus; and by so doing we understand Wittgenstein’s character as mystic. We do the same process in analysing the mystical elements that are latent in his second work too.
Wittgenstein’s Life and his Mysticism
An ordinary thinker who reads Wittgenstein can easily understand that there was something special in him. More than the curiosity to solve the problems in philosophy, there was his mystical character that was dominant throughout his philosophy. It is this mystical character that enabled him to give part of his property as donation to artists and writers and part to his brothers and sisters and become a wanderer.[ii] Wittgenstein was found depressed most of his life. One of the many reasons for his depression is the loss of three brothers (Hans, Kurt, and Rudolf). They committed suicide when Wittgenstein was still young. In fact, Wittgenstein himself attempted suicide on several occasions. he became silent, contemplative and solitary. Many questions regarding life, reality, and God kept popping up in his mind. He became a silent witness to many of his sorrows, pains, unanswered questions, and puzzles. He could not find an answer for all of them; neither could he avoid them haunting him. All he wanted simple life, contemplation, silence and solitariness.
Moore commented on Wittgenstein’s character saying that he appeared to be depressed and sad man; he spoke slowly and was gloomy most of the time.[iii] Von Wright writes in his article entitled as, “Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Biographical Sketch,” that he heard from Wittgenstein himself that he was constantly unhappy.[iv] At times, unhappy, dissatisfactory and bitter experiences cause one to mysticism or serve as starting point for mystical experience. I dare to claim this as possible fact from analyzing how Buddha was led to contemplation initially. When Buddha was 29 years old, for the first time he had the three painful experiences in life (an old man, a sick person and a corpse). After these experiences, he started questioning the meaning of life and simultaneously left everything and followed ascetic life.
I see a parallelism between Wittgenstein’s and Buddha’s mysticism at least in terms of the beginning of the mystical experience. In both of them, painful experience or a general experience of dissatisfaction towards phenomenal realities is the starting point of mystical experience, because the reflective questions they asked after such bitter experiences led them to such mystical experience. Of course, it is not common, but at least, in few cases such bitter experience was the starting point of mystical experience. In this sense, we can conclude that Wittgenstein’s painful experiences in life led him to be contemplative and mystical. And subsequently he became mute especially when he tried to communicate the mystical experience. This struggle in his personal life attracted him to logical positivism and to logic of language. Russell has a contradictory view in this regard. He says that Wittgenstein’s attitude of mysticism actually began with his faith in the doctrines of pure logic.[v] It is not his interest in pure logic that led him to mysticism. But it is the other way round. His mysticism was one that led him initially to pure logic.
Instances or Events reflecting Mysticism
Wittgenstein was not a church-going Christian, but he lived his religiosity in more mystical way. Georg Henrik goes one step further and remarks that Wittgenstein certainly did not have Christian faith.[vi] Wittgenstein stayed away from practicing formal religion all through his life. But he prayed at times especially during the war, read Christian literatures, and gave out all his properties which are properly religious activities.[vii] He was contemplative, silence-seeking, solitary, and reflective. The prayer he prayed is of importance as we talk about his mysticism. Some of the prayers are to be mentioned here in order to understand the mind (mystical mind) of Wittgenstein: The following prayers are prayed by Wittgenstein at different times in his life-time.
God be with me! The spirit be with me![viii]
How will I behave when it comes to shooting? I am not afraid of being shot but of not doing my duty properly. God give me strength! Amen!
If it is all over with me now, may I die a good death, mindful of myself. May I never lose myself! Now I might have the opportunity to be a decent human being, because I am face to face with death. May the spirit enlighten me.[ix] (The underlines are mine)
We can notice from the underlined statements how mystic Wittgenstein was. His prayers reveal some of the characteristics of a mystic such as, duty, consciousness, fearlessness of death, being human, enlightenment, etc.
In a Lecture on ‘ethics’ at Cambridge Wittgenstein spoke about an experience that he had when he was youth and described it as ‘feeling absolutely safe.’ What he intended to say was that he was safe; nothing could injure him whatsoever could happen.[x] In the same lecture, he spoke of another mystical experience in which he used to wonder at the existence of the world as created by God.[xi] The characteristic description he gave for both the experiences overtly tell us how mystic he was, because ‘to be safe’ and ‘to wonder’ are two important characteristics of a mystic.
During the war, among the soldiers he was known as ‘the one with the Gospels,’ because during this period, he found Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief and read and reread.[xii] His fellow prisoner, Franz Parak in a prison camp at Monte Cassino reports that Wittgenstein underwent a conversion during the war and that contributed his subsequent giving up all his property and living a life of poverty in 1919.[xiii]
After a short visit to Norway and England with his friend, David Pinsent, he alone returned to Norway and stayed in a farm at Skjolden in Sogn near Bergen. He lived there until the outbreak of the war in 1914. He built a small hut near Skjolden and lived an isolated and solitary life.[xiv] To know how solitary he liked to be, we have to look into his own statement he made when he was in Ireland. The statement he made is found in a letter to Norman Malcolm, written in Ireland in 1948, where he says:
I haven’t anyone at all to talk to here, & this is good & in a way bad. It would be good to see someone occasionally to whom one could say a really friendly word. I don’t need conversations. What I’d like would be someone to smile at occasionally.[xv]
Russell registers certain qualities about Wittgenstein in his letter to Ottoline which manifest well the mystic character of Wittgenstein: “His disposition is that of an artist, intuitive and moody. He says every morning he begins his work with hope, […].”[xvi]
Wittgenstein was exceptionally musical. He even carried out an investigation in ‘rhythm’ at the psychological laboratory at Cambridge. He inherited the exceptional taste for music from his parents. At home both his parents were musicians. When he was young, his house remained a house of music. He played clarinet at Cambridge. Georg Henrik reports that Wittgenstein had a rare talent of whistling and could whistle the whole concert.[xvii]
The aforementioned instances and evens mark Wittgenstein’s mysticism. These instances or events manifest his mystical character. More specifically his depressive character, more particularly his self-immolatory leanings (suicidal tendency), his own contempt over the success of his earlier philosophy, his love for silence, solitariness, love of nature and music, all led him to religio-mystical life.
Wittgensteinian Mysticism a Transition from Apophatic to Kataphatic
We have established that Wittgensteinian is by nature a mystic in the first section of the paper. The mysticism that he lived and that appears in his writings can be understood and explained in terms of a transition from Apophatic to Kataphatic. Apophatic Vs. Kataphatic is the one of the ways of categorizing or classifying mystical experience. These are two types of mysticisms and they oppose each other. The earlier is negative and the later is positive. Wittgensteinian mystical experience is of both. The mysticism that is found in Tractatus is Apophatic and the mysticism which is found in Philosophical Investigations is Kataphatic. We recognize that the mysticism of Wittgenstein takes a transition from negative in Tractatus to positive in Philosophical Investigations. Both types of mysticisms are in themselves authentic. The only interesting point is that the earlier cannot be communicated and later can be communicated meaningfully and understood and appreciated.
Kataphatic mysticism is from the Greek term, ‘Kataphasis” meaning “affirmation” or “saying with.” It claims that God can be described or said with positive terms. It uses words, images, symbols, ideas or statements to express the Ultimate. Most importantly it expresses the Divine through positive terminologies. On the other hand, Apophatic mysticism is from the Greek term, “Apophasis” meaning “negation” or “saying away.” It is of emptying the mind of words and ideas about God and simply experiencing him in silence. In other words, it says that nothing can be said about objects and states of affairs of the mystic experience. Sometimes, Apophatic mysticism can also be explained as negative theology. In other words, it is ‘unsaying’ or ‘deconstruction.’[xviii] We observe the same type of Apophatic mystical and theological thinking in the medieval philosophers such as, Ibn Al-Arabi, Meister Eckhart, Pseudo Dionysius and the Indian Nethi–Nethi philosophy. Apophatic or negative way stresses God’s absolute transcendence and his ineffability and unknowability.
According to Apophatic mysticism, nothing can be said about God and all spiritual realities, because our language is incapable of expressing them. Therefore, the different conceptualizations about the divine realities that religions have are to be revised and deconstructed, because the divine realities are beyond those linguistic conceptualizations. This is the reason why Wittgenstein was never interested in dogmatism of religion. His practice of religion was more of human, contemplative, ascetic, and philosophical. Human languages limit what is spiritual or mystical. Apophatic mysticism affirms that it is merely impossible to name the Transcendent and to ascribe attributes to it.[xix] One can name and ascribe attributes only to objects or things. The Ultimate is not the person and a thing or an object. With the finite language one cannot attempt to say what cannot be said about. God and related ideas are beyond the “thingness.” Therefore, whatever has been said so far about God and related things must be unsaid; in other words, all the conceptual sayings of spiritual or mystical must deconstructed.
Apophatic Mysticism of Tractatus
In the introduction to Tractatus, Russell affirms that there are objects that are mystical and those objects cannot be expressed in language.[xx] These objects are ethical, theological, and metaphysical. Why the mystical cannot be expressed? The mystical cannot be expressed because they are not facts or states of affairs which can be verified. Though Wittgenstein was unable to speak about these objects, nevertheless, he was capable of conveying these objects. He defends that what cannot be said can be shown[xxi] (4.1212). He writes: “There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical” (6.522). It follows that there are some things which cannot be said but they can nevertheless be shown and grasped. In other words, Wittgenstein characterizes the things that cannot be spoken of or expressed as mystical. In another place, when he says about the correct method of doing philosophy, he says: “to say nothing except what can be said.”[xxii]The final proposition of the Tractatus says that, “What we cannot speak about we must consign to silence.”[xxiii] From all these sentences from Tractatus, we understand that Wittgenstein had a clear understanding about the nature of the mystical, that he had personal mystical experiences, and that he was unable express them with the limits of the language. Not only the above mentioned propositions, but also generally speaking, Tractatus on the whole explicitly states that Wittgenstein have distinguished the expressible from inexpressible. This distinction itself perfectly affirms that he had certain thoughts about extraordinary irrational sense – thoughts about the essence of the world, aesthetics, ethics, language and religion. Wittgenstein never set limit to the thought itself but only to the language that expresses thought. According to Wittgenstein what lies beyond the limit that is set in language will be nonsense.[xxiv] We can have the thoughts about mystical, but they cannot find expression in language. They are unspeakable, inexpressible, and ineffable. They belong to Private language which Wittgenstein would deal in his second work.
Apophatic mysticism is the way of affirming the existence of the mystical through negative way. In this sense, the mysticism of Tractatus is Apophatic. Tractatus negates the possibility of manifesting the mystical through language. In other words, it empties one’s mind of words and ideas about the mystical and suggests one to experience it in silence and contemplation. Apophatic mysticism of the Tractatus surrenders in front of the ineffability of the mystical and keeps silence. As far as we talk about Tractatus as language philosophy, propositions that do not have verifiable facts are nonsense. But this so-called nonsense of the Tractarian propositions shows the way to silence. Moreover, Wittgenstein wanted that Tractatus should guide the reader to silence rather than nonsense. This is the reason why he ended the book with that affirmation that says: “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”[xxv]
Tractarian mysticism was much influenced by Tolstoy whom Wittgenstein read during his imprisonment in Italy. Breitenbach reports in her article, “Nonsense and Mysticism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,” that actually Tolstoy wanted to disentangle the explicable (that which is understandable by reason), from the inexplicable (that which cannot be perceived through reason) but pertains to realm of faith and which flows from something mysterious, i.e., God.[xxvi] For Tolstoy, all that cannot be known rationally can nevertheless be known irrationally and the source of these rationally unknowable is ‘mysterious’. Similarly for Wittgenstein, all that cannot be known through language must be shown and the source of the ineffable is ‘mystical’.[xxvii] Tolstoy believed that that which cannot be known rationally can nevertheless be known irrationally, i.e., through faith. Similarly for Wittgenstein, that mystical which could not find a space in Tractatus, nevertheless can find space in his second book, Philosophical Investigations.
Kataphatic Mysticism of Philosophical Investigations
As it has been argued earlier in this article, Wittgenstein had a deep understanding and experience of the mystical both in his academic and personal life. He tried to express in language these mystical thoughts in his initial book, Tractatus, but his conviction on logical positivism of Russell and Frege subsequently made him realize that he was making nonsense. According to the logic of language, the statements regarding mystical are nonsense, because they do not stand for any states of affairs or facts. Nevertheless, in his later thinking, he came to realize that those propositions about the thoughts of mystical or the ineffable, or the unspeakable or the inexpressible could still be communicated and understood by the reader. Because in his later thinking, Wittgenstein talks about the dynamics of language that create room for the expression of all those:
But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command? - There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call "symbols", "words", "sentences". And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten.[xxviii]
When Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1928, he started questioning his earlier convictions regarding the common logical structure between language, thought and reality and the pronouncement regarding what a logically constructed language can and cannot express.[xxix] Subsequently, he realized that the meaning of a word is no longer its relation to its corresponding fact outside there, but the meaning of the word is in its use.
In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein likens the application of words and sentences of language to “family resemblances.” Just as there are various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc., so also there are complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing in the usage of a language too.[xxx] Furthermore, we also identify that there is a variety of grammatical forms which can be used to express the same basic thought. For this reason, Wittgenstein concluded that it was impossible to create an ideal formal language which can picture reality in absolute manner. For him, the aim to create a formal language was itself reckless effort.[xxxi] Often philosophers, especially German philosophers create their own terminologies in their own native language or at times they give special meanings to ordinary terms and phrases. Those terminologies are to be read not with the earlier wittgensteinian logic of language, but with the “Language Game” mentality. If we read with the logic of language, we will find them nonsense. Instead we have to read them with the eyes that look for their special meaning which may not necessarily be the possible facts. This is what Philosophical Investigations aims at through “Language game” Theory. We are going to define first of all what “Language Game” is and establish how mystical experience or mysticism as “Language Game’ gives rise to a particular type of language called mystical language and that enables anybody to understand any mystical discourse.
Primarily by “Language Game” theory, Wittgenstein says that the language is like any other game. Words have meanings only in the context of a game. These games are nothing but different events or occurrences in life. There are language games such as scientific, religious aesthetic, and ethical discourses, speaking, joking, translating, greeting, praying and many others. These games serve as contexts out of which words and sentences gain significances and meanings. The following are the examples of language-games which Wittgenstein himself gives:
Giving orders, and obeying them -
Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements-
Constructing an object from a description (a drawing) -
Reporting an event –
Speculating about an event -[xxxii]
It implies that if one cannot understand the words in their contexts, i.e., the language games, one cannot understand the meaning of the words in their truest sense. In this sense, even religion, and mysticism can be considered as language games. There are terminologies which gain meanings only in the context of their language games. Mysticism, being one of the logical games, serves as context for the formation of a number of mystical terms and their meanings. It means that the unspeakable can still be spoken and comprehended.
Secondly, the term “Language Game” explicitly manifests the fact that the speaking of a language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.[xxxiii] Wittgenstein states that people agree in the language they use, but their agreement is not based on opinions but on some kind of form of life.[xxxiv] He also registers: “To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.”[xxxv] Mysticism is one of the different forms of life. Those who live mysticism and people who know mysticism share in this form of life. The language that is constituted out of this form of life is able to express mystical realities and people are able to grasp the mystical realities through the particular language.
Thirdly, the term, “Language Game” insists on how the language is actually used. Here Wittgenstein talks about the usage of language in different practical situations and how the words gain meaning depending upon their usage. He says, “The meaning of a word is its use in the language.”[xxxvi] He brings language from the metaphysical nature to a nature whereby the language has its own ordinary everyday use-value. I would say that he tries to bring out language’s dynamic and simple nature over against its rigid, abstract and uniform modal of Tractatus. Philosophical Investigations abolishes the tendency to link the meaning of words to the things outside in the world and ascertains that the meaning of the words is nothing but a set of informal rules that govern the use of the words in our everyday life.[xxxvii] The use-value of the “Language Game” theory in Philosophical Investigations over against fixed meaning of logical language in Tractatus renders communication of the mystical. This is the beauty of Kataphatic mysticism of Philosophical Investigations.
Conclusion
Philosophers have viewed Wittgensteinian works from very many different viewpoints or aspects. There are philosophers who analyzed his works from the aspect of mysticism and they conclusively stated that there are mystical elements in Tractatus. The paper initially established that Wittgenstein was by nature a mystic. Secondly, it restated that Tractatus contains mystical elements that reflect Wittgenstein’s personal mystical character and that the mysticism that it speaks about is Apophatic. Thirdly, it claimed that even the second work of Wittgenstein also contains mystical elements and the mysticism of this second work is Kataphatic. The transition from Apophatic mysticism of Tractatusto Kataphatic mysticism of Philosophical Investigations is very obvious as the transition from rigidity of language of Tractatus to dynamism of language of Philosophical Investigations is obvious.
[i] Cora Diamond, “Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,’ in Alice Crary and Rupert Read, eds., The New Wittgenstein (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 157. (149-173) [ii] Volker Maria Neuman, “Ludwig Wittgenstein or the Philosophy of Austere Lines,” Trans. Translation: Martin Pearce at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110302195044/http://www.goethe.de/ges/phi/prt/en2341144.htm; See also: Duffy, Bruce, “The do-it-yourself Life of Ludwig Wittgenstein,” in The New York Times (13 November 1988), p. 4/10. [iii] Maurice O’Connor Drury, The Selected Writings of Maurice O’Connor Drury: On Wittgenstein, Philosophy, Religion and Psychology, ed., John Hayes (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), p. 37. [iv][iv] Georg Henrik Von Wright, “Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Biographical Sketch,” in The Philosophical Review, Vol,64, No, 4 (Oct., 1955), p. 530 (537-545) [v] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. xxiii. [vi] Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life, 43. [vii] Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein, Personal Recollections, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 94. [viii] Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life, 221. [ix] Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life, p. 221. [x] (1965) ‘A lecture on ethics’, Philosophical Review, vol. 74, no.1, January. P.8. [xi] (1965) ‘A lecture on ethics’, Philosophical Review, vol. 74, no.1, January., 10. [xii] Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life, p. 220. [xiii] Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life, p. 273. [xiv] Georg Henrik von Wright, “Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Biographical Sketch,” P. 531 [xv] Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), no. 26, p. 107. [xvi] Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life : Young Ludwig (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London; The university of California press, 1988), p. 100. [xvii] Georg Henrik von Wright, “Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Biographical Sketch,” pp. 531-532. [xviii] James C. Harrington and Sidney G. Hall, Three Mystics Walk into a Tavern: A Once and Future Meeting of Rumi, Meister Echkart and Moses de Leon in Medieval Venice, (Maryland: Hamilton Books, 2015), p.13. [xix] James C. Harrington and Sidney G. Hall, Three Mystics Walk into a Tavern: A Once and Future Meeting of Rumi, Meister Echkart and Moses de Leon in Medieval Venice, p. 14. [xx] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. xxiv. [xxi] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. 31. [xxii] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. 89. [xxiii] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 89. [xxiv] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, pp. 3-4. [xxv] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, no. 7; p.89. [xxvi] Angela Breitenbach, “Nonsense and Mysticism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,” in Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 19 (2008), p. 64. (55-77); see also: Tolstoy, A Confession, The Gospel in Brief and What I Believe, trans. A. Maude (Oxford: OUP, 1971), pp. 80f. [xxvii] Ibid. [xxviii] Ibid., 23. [xxix] R. A. D. Priyanka Weerasekara, “A Study on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games and the Private Language Argument,” in Sabaragamuwa University Journal, Vol. 12, no.1 (December 2013), p.84. (83-95) [xxx] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, no. 66-67. [xxxi] R. A. D. Priyanka Weerasekara, “A Study on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games and the Private Language Argument,” p. 85. [xxxii] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations, no.23. [xxxiii] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations, no. 23. [xxxiv] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations, no. 241. [xxxv] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations, trans., G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), No. 19. [xxxvi] Ibid., no. 43. [xxxvii] R. A. D. Priyanka Weerasekara, “A Study on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games and the Private Language Argument,” p. 90.
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