Autumnal berries
Seen in a college garden yesterday.
Quote of the Day
”Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
- John Maynard Keynes
Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
Dionisio Aguado | Rondo in A minor | Julian Bream
(You might have t skip the Uber ad at the beginning.)
Long Read of the Day
On the Simple Life of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Philosophy as “Neverending Therapy”
If you’re interested in Wittgenstein (as I am) then this essay by Anthony Gottlieb is a gem. It’s adapted from his new book, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes, which came out this week.
In 1931, at the age of forty-one, Ludwig Wittgenstein mused in his diary that perhaps his name would live on only as the end point of Western philosophy—“like the name of the one who burnt down the library of Alexandria.” There probably was no such an arsonist. The books of ancient Alexandria seem to have perished mainly by rot and neglect, not in a single blaze.
And Western philosophy certainly did not come to an end with Wittgenstein, who died in 1951. He did not really believe that it would. Wittgenstein could get carried away when writing in his diaries, especially when contemplating himself, which he did often.
But he did think that he had found a fresh approach to philosophical problems. At least for a while and in some places, his influence changed how philosophy was done. A memorial brass in Trinity College, Cambridge, that stands on a wall behind statues of Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon declares (in Latin):
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Fellow of this College, Professor of Philosophy in the University for eight years, showed to many a new way of philosophizing . . . and taught by examples that reason should be freed from the snares of language…
I’m tempted to buy the book. The ashes of my late wife, Carol are buried in Ascension Churchyard in Cambridge, where Wittgenstein also lies, so when I visit her grave I generally check to see what mementoes visitors have left on his. Also, in one of those interesting coincidences, nearby is the grave of Frank Ramsey the young genius who had translated Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at the age of 19 and whom Wittgenstein thought was the only person in Cambridge who understood it at first.
Books, etc.
Branco Milanovic is a formidable economist (and an interesting blogger) and this is his latest book. It’s about what’s likely to happen after the international global order to which we’ve all been accustomed has finally crumbled away. I’m a sucker for grand narratives and so started reading this on Wednesday evening — and only put it down because I needed to sleep. <hr
My commonplace booklet
I’ve always disliked Halloween, ever since I was a kid. So I was very struck by Jeff Jacoby’s piece in the Boston Globe the other day, triggered, I think, by the photograph below.
My father’s life had been scarred by people who scrupled at nothing, not even the murder of children. As a teenager in the Nazi death camps, he had been an eyewitness to unspeakable cruelty. He knew what can happen when people stop taking evil seriously. For him, death was not a punch line.
Perhaps I’m overreacting. But I can’t help thinking that what my father instinctively recoiled from — the blurring of horror and light entertainment — is precisely what our society now does on a national scale every October. As I pass yards filled with grinning Death’s-heads and plastic agony, the juxtaposition is hard to miss: For generations, such images were meant to stir the conscience. Now they’re a beacon to kids going door-to-door to amass KitKats and Twizzlers. The symbols remain — skulls, bones, graves — but the meaning has drained away. What once was moral instruction has become seasonal amusement.
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