Genius and Talent: Schopenhauer's Influence on Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 469 the morally contingent natural world, the symbolization of ideas or requisite analogical thinking for giving expression to transcendent ideas, and the notion of Denkungsart.s GISELA FELICITAS MUNZEL Univfrsity of Notre Dame David Avraham Weiner. Genius and Talent: Schopenhauer's Influence on Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy. Cranbury, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992. Pp. x38. Cloth, $28.5o. Weiner contends that "Wittgenstein's first philosophy was Schopenhauerian" (lo-11), and that though the Schopenhauerian link has been acknowledged (9, 15, 16, etc.), the "prevalent trend" (9, 17) is to ignore it. (Weiner nowhere mentions Pears's recent discussion of the Schopenhauerian link to Wittgenstein in Vol. 1 of The False Prison.) This may not be entirely the commentators' fault since Wittgenstein himself"misled a whole generation of readers" (18) by "conceal[ing] his connection to Sch.openhauer." (2 l, 25). Weiner's aim is to "reconstruct the conceptual steps that lead from Schopenhauer 's philosophy to Wittgenstein's" and to "offer textual evidence that Wittgenstein actually took these steps en route to the Tractatus (TLP for short)" (lo). Weiner quotes Griffiths, who holds that "one might regard parts of the Tractatus as a dialogue with [Schopenhauer]," and Weiner represents parts of the Notebooks and Tractatus in precisely this way. He does not claim that there is always similarity between Wittgenstein's and Schopenhauer's philosophies, but that sometimes the former adopts Schopenhauer's view, sometimes he reacts against it, and sometimes he falls between these two extremes (lO). The claim that TLP is a dialogue with Schopenhauer is a very strong claim, and may even be true. But Weiner would have been on safer ground had he claimed only that it had been influenced by Schopenhauer. The book is divided into three parts. In Chapter l, Weiner claims that Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer were similar in their disdain for metaphysical language, and that both develop a theory of language to combat groundless metaphysical pretensions (11, ~7, 34). In Chapter ~ he argues that, roughly, Wittgenstein accepts Schopenhauer's world-as-representation, but rejects the world-as-will (l l). In Chapter 3, he relates the final sections of the Tractatus to Schopenhauer's theories of virtue, beauty, etc. One might expect that Weiner's case is strongest with regard to the "ethical point" of TLP (18), and this is the case. But he also claims that the Schopenhauerian influence improves our understanding of Wittgenstein's first philosophy "as a whole" (17), including TLP views on language, science, metaphysics, and epistemology. He acknowledges that "it is easy to point to vague parallels" (1o), but some of the parallels emphasized by Weiner do appear to be too vague to shed great illumination on TLP. sThis term (meaning mode of thought) is not mentioned in the present study, although it appears frequently in the German text of the Religion. Often translated as castof mind, it is the act producing disposition (Gesinnung) and is ultimately definitive of human character. The Anthropologiein pragsmtischerHinsicta, pp. ~85-3oa, also gives an extended discussion of Derdmngsart. 470 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ~1:3 JULY t99 5 For example, in Chapter 1 he argues first that Schopenhauer's critique of metaphysical language is built on Kant's distinction between intuition and concept (29). Like Kant, Schopenhauer thinks concepts require intuitions (percepts), but unlike Kant, intuitions do not require concepts (28, 30). "Pseudoconcepts are.., notes of issue with no perceptual concepts to back them up" (32). Metaphysical nonsense (reaching from Plato to Hegel) is built on words that symbolize pseudoconcepts (32-33). One can develop an "immanent metaphysics" where metaphysical words, as in Kant, are closely tied to "the ground of perception" (33). Weiner sees a continuity insofar as TLP also holds that metaphysics is nonsense. Both Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer hold that their "contemporaries are merely 'blowing hot air'" (34). However, that is a similarity that they share with almost every other philosopher. But Weiner thinks that Wittgenstein becomes a "Schopenhauerian with a vengeance" (38), insofar as he holds that not only metaphysics, but all philosophical, ethical, aesthetical, and religious propositions are nonsense (38, 43). Since Wittgenstein holds that only the propositions of natural science make...