A Quick Look at Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Zettelkasten: Zettel 1967

In response to a post last week, Stephen Downes reminded me that Ludwig Wittgenstein had a zettelkasten practice. In particular there is a translated and published book Zettel from 1967 which contains 717 zettels from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, or works left behind following his death in 1951. I’ve had a copy lying around for a bit, but finally spent some time with it. The book cleverly has a parallel text form with the German on one side of the page and the English on the facing page. I’ve also seen translations of the book in both Spanish and Italian for those who might prefer those.

While the individual entries themselves are as fascinating as dipping randomly into some of Henry David Thoreau’s journals or Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s Waste Books, the brief introductory material by the editors was immediately the most interesting to me. 

In the book, the editors (one a student, the other his friend and colleague and both his literary executors) indicate that many of Wittgenstein’s zettels “were for the most part cut from extensive typescripts of his, other copies of which still exist.” Perhaps not knowing of the commonplace book or zettelkasten traditions, they may have dramatically mistaken the notes in his zettelkasten as having originated in his typescripts rather than them having originated as notes which then later made it into his typescripts! I’m left wondering what in particular about the originals may have made them think it was typescript to zettel?! They even indicate having gone so far as to edit some of the zettel using the typescripts to fill in missing material, so those reading them from the note stage forward may wish to take caution for these.

If it’s true that the two editors were unaware of his note taking habits, then it would seem obvious that Wittgenstein didn’t pass along his note taking methods to his students, given that Anscombe was close enough to have visited his deathbed and been named a literary executor. Given the mid-century timeframe, it’s likely that the card index note taking methods were already passing out of vogue at this time.

Some more digging into the actual original materials may be necessary here. Were these the only slips he left behind? Were there others? Did he dispose of his notes as works from them were published?

Based on the dating provided by Anscombe and von Wright, Wittgenstein’s slips dated from 1929 to 1948. Supposing that the notes preceded the typescripts and not the other way around as Anscombe and von Wright indicate, the majority of the notes were turned into written work (typescripts) which were dictated from 1945-1948.

Some of the manuscript notes in Wittgenstein’s zettelkasten were according to the editors “apparently written to add to the remarks on a particular matter preserved in the box”. So much like Niklas Luhmann’s wooden conversation partner, Wittgenstein was not only having conversations with the texts he was reading, he was creating a conversation between himself and his pre-existing notes thus extending his lines of thought within his zettelkasten.

However the form of these notes is structurally different from Luhmann’s. Peter Geach apparently made an arrangement of Wittgenstein’s slips which was broadly kept in the edited and published version Zettel. Fragments on the same topic were clipped together indicating that Wittgenstein’s method was most likely by “conversation”, subject, or possibly topical headings. However there were also a large number of slips “lying loose in the box.” Perhaps these were notes which he had yet to file or which some intervening archivist may have re-arranged? In any case this particular source doesn’t indicate the use of alphabetical dividers or other tabbed divisions.

In any case, Geach otherwise arranged all the materials as best as he could according to subject matter. As a result the printed book version isn’t necessarily the arrangement that Wittgenstein would have made, but the editors of the book felt that at least Geach’s arrangement made it an “instructive and readable compilation”. Many of the zettels are closely related and seem to form coherent ideas or streams of thought. Some remind me a bit of Twitter threads. 

Ultimately I’m left wondering, what was Wittgenstein’s reading, note taking, and process? Was it note taking, arranging/outlining, and then dictation followed by editing? Dictating certainly would have been easier/faster if he’d already written down his cards and could simply read from them to a secretary.

For those hoping for lots of answers about his particular practice, not much is to be gleaned here except for looking directly at the collection as a whole. Most fascinating to me is seeing a softer conversational and decontextualized nature in the notes which I’ve also seen in Luhmann’s. Of course without the context and references, many are unlikely to mean much to some without some heavy reading or studying.

Puzzling out Wittgenstein’s active practice is likely going to require some more direct access to the source materials or subsequent works from other scholars who have been through them and his other materials more thoroughly.


References

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Zettel. Edited by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright,. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Second California Paperback Printing. 1967. Reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007.

Book cover of Zettel by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Bookmarked History of Philosophy - Summarized & Visualized by Deniz Cem ÖnduyguDeniz Cem Önduygu (denizcemonduygu.com)
A summary of the history of philosophy showing the positive/negative connections between ideas
This could be thought of as a form of digital, single-project zettelkasten dedicated to philosophy. It’s got people, sources, and ideas which are cross linked in a Luhmann-sense (without numbering) though not in a topical index-sense.

Interestingly it has not only a spatial interface and shows spatial relationships between people and ideas over time using a timeline, but it also indicates—using colored links—the ideas of disagreement/contrast/refutation and agreement/similarity/expansion.

What other (digital) tools of thought provide these sorts of visualization affordances?

Read - Reading: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions )
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer as been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.
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Read “Skywoman Falling”
It’s interesting to compare and contrast the origin stories of Skywoman and Eve (of Adam & Eve). Also interesting to see the cultural differences which arise from these philosophies.

Read Longtime philosophy Professor Stephen Barker dies at 92 (The Hub)
He was named professor emeritus after teaching in the Department of Philosophy for nearly four decades
I was thinking about logic a bit this evening and looked up an old professor. Saddened to hear he’s passed away.
Read Judith Jarvis Thomson (1929–2020) by Ben Burgis (jacobinmag.com)
Judith Jarvis Thomson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Her justly famous essay in defense of abortion rights is a model for how to combine philosophical rigor with political engagement in the real world.
Interesting article. I’ll have to look at some other material Jacobin is putting out. Definitely a bit further to the left than is my usual taste, but seems generally well edited and topically interesting.
Read - Want to Read: Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Dip below the ocean's surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom--the Metazoa--they can teach us much about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies, but also our minds.
In his acclaimed 2016 book, Other Minds, the philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith explored the mind of the octopus--the closest thing to an intelligent alien on Earth. In Metazoa, Godfrey-Smith expands his inquiry to animals at large, investigating the evolution of subjective experience with the assistance of far-flung species. As he delves into what it feels like to perceive and interact with the world as other life-forms do, Godfrey-Smith shows that the appearance of the animal body well over half a billion years ago was a profound innovation that set life upon a new path. In accessible, riveting prose, he charts the ways that subsequent evolutionary developments--eyes that track, for example, and bodies that move through and manipulate the environment--shaped the subjective lives of animals. Following the evolutionary paths of a glass sponge, soft coral, banded shrimp, octopus, and fish, then moving onto land and the world of insects, birds, and primates like ourselves, Metazoa gathers their stories together in a way that bridges the gap between mind and matter, addressing one of the most vexing philosophical problems: that of consciousness.
Combining vivid animal encounters with philosophical reflections and the latest news from biology, Metazoa reveals that even in our high-tech, AI-driven times, there is no understanding our minds without understanding nerves, muscles, and active bodies. The story that results is as rich and vibrant as life itself.
Quoted The Californian Ideology by Richard Barbrook & Andy Cameron (Mute)
We need to debate what kind of hypermedia suit our vision of society - how we create the interactive products and on-line services we want to use, the kind of computers we like and the software we find most useful. We need to find ways to think socially and politically about the machines we develop. While learning from the can-do attitude of the Californian individualists, we also must recognise that the potentiality of hypermedia can never solely be realised through market forces. We need an economy which can unleash the creative powers of hi-tech artisans. Only then can we fully grasp the Promethean opportunities of hypermedia as humanity moves into the next stage of modernity. 
As true today as it was 25 years ago.
Read The Californian Ideology by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (Mute)
The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others.

Lacking the free time of the hippies, work itself ho become the main route to self-fulfilment for much of the,virtual class’. 

They’re right that overwork and identification with work has become all too prevalent over the past several decades.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:11AM

Community activists will increasingly use hypermedia to replace corporate capitalism and big government with a hi-tech ‘gift economy’ in which information is freely exchanged between participants. 

I know the idea “gift economy” was around in the late 2000’s and even more prevalent in the teens, but not sure where it originated. This is one of the earliest sitings I’ve seen.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:15AM

In this version of the Californian Ideology, each member of the ‘virtual class’ is promised the opportunity to become a successful hi-tech entrepreneur. 

In retrospect, it’s really only made a much higher disparity between the top and the bottom.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:19AM

Almost every major technological advance of the last two hundred years has taken place with the aid of large amounts of public money and under a good deal of government influence. The technologies of the computer and the Net were invented with the aid of massive state subsidies. 

examples of government (public) funding for research and it’s effects
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:23AM

Americans have always had state planning, but they prefer to call it the defence budget. 

Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:24AM

Entrepreneurs often have an inflated sense of their own ‘creative act of will’ in developing new ideas and give little recognition to the contributions made by either the state or their own labour force. 

Techbro hubris
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:25AM

When Japanese companies threatened to take over the American microchip market, the libertarian computer capitalists of California had no ideological qualms about joining a state-sponsored cartel organised by the state to fight off the invaders from the East! 

A good example of so-called capitalists playing the do as we say and not as we do game.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:27AM

In American folklore, the nation was built out of a wilderness by free-booting individuals – the trappers, cowboys, preachers, and settlers of the frontier. Yet this primary myth of the American republic ignores the contradiction at the heart of the American dream: that some individuals can prosper only through the suffering of others. The life of Thomas Jefferson – the man behind the ideal of `Jeffersonian democracy’ – clearly demonstrates the double nature of liberal individualism. The man who wrote the inspiring call for democracy and liberty in the American declaration of independence was at the same time one of the largest slave-owners in the country. 

Some profound ideas here about the “American Dream” and the dark underbelly of what it may take to achieve not only for individuals, but to do so at scale.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:29AM

Working for hi-tech and new media corporations, many members of the ‘virtual class’ would like to believe that new technology will somehow solve America’s social, racial and economic problems without any sacrifices on their part. 

In retrospect, this has turned out to be all-too-true.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:31AM

Slave labour cannot be obtained without somebody being enslaved. At his estate at Monticello, Jefferson invented many ingenious gadgets – including a ‘dumb waiter’ to mediate contact with his slaves. In the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that this liberal slave-owner is the hero of those who proclaim freedom while denying their brown-skinned fellow citizens those democratic rights said to be inalienable. 

This is a powerful example
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:33AM

Abandoning democracy and social solidarity, the Californian Ideology dreams of a digital nirvana inhabited solely by liberal psychopaths. 

And nearly twenty years later, isn’t that roughly what we’ve got? (aside from the digital nirvana, which didn’t work out so well.)
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:35AM

Read I Crossed Back Into a State of Denial by David FrumDavid Frum (The Atlantic)
At the Canada-U.S. border, I encountered a study in contrasts.

It did not have to be this way. But as Trump aptly said of himself and his policy, “It is what it is.” He accepted more disease in hopes of stimulating a stronger economy and winning reelection. He’s waiting now for the return on that bet. As so often in his reckless career, his speculation seems to be that if the bet wins, he pockets the proceeds. And if the bet fails? The losses fall on others. 

A very apt description of Trump’s life philosophy. Also a broad perspective at how many Republicans and Libertarians seem to view the world economically: privatizing profits and socializing losses.
Annotated on September 06, 2020 at 10:55AM

Replied to Should: The Wrong Foundation for Work (and Life) by Tracy DurnellTracy Durnell (Cascadia Inspired)
I’m a “should”-er. I “should” myself about my career, my relationships, my diet, my priorities. “Should” is insidious. It disrupts my hard-thought-through priorities to tell me I’m focused on the wrong goals. “Should” makes it hard to distinguish what I … Continue reading →
I’ve totally got this problem too. When it applies to my want to read book list I simply use the framing of an antilibrary.
 
I like the way you’ve framed it with the “should” idea. Another framing I’ve seen for this sort of philosophy is a more extreme “No ‘yes.’ Either ‘HELL YEAH!’ or ‘no’.” 
Read What's wrong with WhatsApp by William Davies (the Guardian)
The long read: As social media has become more inhospitable, the appeal of private online groups has grown. But they hold their own dangers – to those both inside and out.

A Short Essay on the Relationship of STEM and Racist Ideas

I’ve seen many tweets today with the hashtag #shutdownSTEM. Some of them included some people asking why such a thing would be necessary. What does STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) have to do with racism they ask? 

I find myself seeing some immediate and excellent historical examples in Dr. Ibram X. Kendi‘s book Stamped from the Beginning. In chapter nine of the book he discusses the variety and flavors of racism espoused by Thomas Jefferson in his book Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), which would become the most  consumed American nonfiction book until well into the mid-nineteenth century.

Shortly afterward Samuel Stanhope Smith countered portions of Jefferson’s racist ideas in the 1787 annual oration to the august American Philosophical Society. This annual lecture was already one of the most heralded scholarly lectures in America and was attended by the wealthy and elite leaders and thinkers in the country. The lecture would be published as the influential Essay on the Causes of Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species

While Smith used the lecture to attack the abhorrent racist idea of polygenesis, he did espouse a wide array of other racist tropes including assimilationist climate theory. Dr. Kendi specifically notes that he may have picked up this idea from James Bowdoin’s opening oration of the newly established American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston on May 4, 1780.
 
To quote Dr. Kendi:
 

Samuel Stanhope Smith joined those preeminent intellectuals in Boston’s American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Philadelphia’s American Philosophical Society in attacking polygenesists, in reviving climate theory in America. His scholarly defense of scripture was quickly printed in Philadelphia, in London, and in Lord Kames’s back-yard, Edinburgh. By the time he sat down in Princeton’s presidential chair in 1795, he had amassed an international scholarly reputation.

So in just a few pages Kendi lays out some serious evidence of the direct spread of a wide variety of racist ideas by not only by the academic elite, but the leaders of multiple influential universities and scientific and philosophical institutions in America. The reverberating echos of these wrongs are still haunting us today. They still need to be addressed and righted. We need to use our moral alembic and distill these racist ideas out of science in America.

Lest one wonder about the influence of Samuel Stanhope Smith’s essay, I’ll note that Noah Webster cited Smith directly in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary in the definition of philosophy. The citation was from  Smith’s second edition of his Essay on the Causes of Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species (1810). The quote as given: “True religion, and true philosophy must ultimately arrive at the same principle.”

We’re obviously still seeking both true religion and true philosophy.

While you’re thinking about #shutdownSTEM on June 10th and long thereafter, I recommend you spend some time sitting with the ideas that have been handed down to us and question them closely, for this is what science and philosophy are all about. If you find you can’t do that hard work–and it is hard, then perhaps read a bit of Dr. Kendi’s excellent and ardent text Stamped from the Beginning.

Link between Lullism and the Jesuits’ descent into the particular

While reading The Art of Memory by Frances Yates, I ran across the phrase “descending from ‘generals’ to ‘specials'”and it reminded me of the Jesuit idea of “descending into the particular”.

Yates indicates, I think rightly, that this is:

a notion implicit in Lullism as it ascends and descends on the ladder of being [scala naturae] from specials to generals and from generals to specials. This terminology is specifically used of memory in Lull’s Liber ad memoriam confirmandam in which it is stated that memory is to be divided into specials and generals, the specials descending from the generals.

This seems like it is very closely associated with the Jesuit’s concept of “descending into the particular” (or the specials) within their teaching on thinking. (For those unfamiliar, I recall that Malcolm Gladwell has an interesting podcast episode within Revisionist History on this area of moral reasoning.)

Given that Raymond Lull (c. 1232 – c. 1315) has significant philosophical and religious sway in his lifetime, it is highly likely that the Jesuits (founded 1535) may have picked up the foundation of the concept from him. Yates writes this section in Chapter X, in relation to the ideas of memory with respect to Lullism which assuredly influenced Peter Ramus (1515-1572) and his ideas of memory.

I can’t help but think about why the Jesuits didn’t also include the idea of ascension into their philosophy? Perhaps some additional research into the topic will reveal some more direct associations. I think Yates’ link between Lullism and Ramism are pretty solid. I’d like to see some more direct evidence between Lullism and the Jesuits. I’d love to delve into the use of the art of memory within the Jesuit tradition as well.

The scala naturae or great chain of being has had a profound effect (not necessarily a positive one) on religion and modern culture. Far too many people are completely ignorant of what it is or what it entails, yet it underpins a huge swath of Western thought.

Miniature in an illuminated manuscript of Raymond Lull next to a ladder indicating the the levels of being
Scala Naturae or Ladder of Being in Breviculum ex artibus Raimundi Lulli electum – St. Peter perg. 92 [page 13 (5r)]
Read Introducing the idea of ‘hyperobjects’ by Timothy MortonTimothy Morton (High Country News)
A new way of understanding climate change and other phenomena.

We are obliged to do something about them, because we can think them.

Annotated on January 15, 2020 at 08:56AM

It’s very difficult to talk about something you cannot see or touch, yet we are obliged to do so, since global warming affects us all.

It’s also difficult to interact with those things when we’re missing the words and vocabulary to talk about them intelligently.
Annotated on January 15, 2020 at 09:00AM

Timothy Morton is Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University in Houston. He is the author of Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality and Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End Of The World.

want to read these
Annotated on January 15, 2020 at 10:10AM

Or global warming. I can’t see or touch it. What I can see and touch are these raindrops, this snow, that sunburn patch on the back of my neck. I can touch the weather. But I can’t touch climate. So someone can declare: “See! It snowed in Boise, Idaho, this week. That means there’s no global warming!” We can’t directly see global warming, because it’s not only really widespread and really really long-lasting (100,000 years); it’s also super high-dimensional. It’s not just 3-D. It’s an incredibly complex entity that you have to map in what they call a high-dimensional- phase space: a space that plots all the states of a system. In so doing, we are only following the strictures of modern science, laid down by David Hume and underwritten by Immanuel Kant. Science can’t directly point to causes and effects: That would be metaphysical, equivalent to religious dogma. It can only see correlations in data. This is because, argues Kant, there is a gap between what a thing is and how it appears (its “phenomena”) that can’t be reduced, no matter how hard we try. We can’t locate this gap anywhere on or inside a thing. It’s a transcendental gap. Hyperobjects force us to confront this truth of modern science and philosophy.

A short, and very cogent argument here.
Annotated on January 15, 2020 at 10:07AM

Hat tip: Ethan Marcotte #