Quote: (03-06-2013 11:24 AM)cardguy Wrote:
Hey Mersault - I seem to be the only fan of Wittgenstein who prefers the Tractaus to the Philosophical Investigations. Do you know if this is a common position?
And if you write up a film on Ludwig. Check out the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz
Cheers! And good luck with the film. The Derek Jarman one was 50 shades of shit combined. But - I think the world of philosophy should have more films about them.
I always thought David Lynch could do a good film on Nietzsche. Personally i would open with the scene of Nietszche's breakdown where he throws himself on the horse which is being whipped.
Hey!
I have never read either. I perused Tractatus and struggled with the logic. It is too ferociously rigid for me. It struck me as pedantic rationality. I'm not beyond obfuscation. Heidegger and all his dasein's, i can fathom. Derrida and his clauses, i'm half following. Abstract philosophy is fine. As soon as strict convoluted logic is on the scene however, i can't keep up.
I might explain to myself that i can't keep up because i'm not interested in it but that might just be a convenient excuse when in fact it might just be that my not being interested is simply a result of my not being able to keep up. Not interested or not capable. Either way, it amounts to the same thing. I haven't read it.
Same goes for the Philosophical Investigations, although i am familiar with Wittgenstein renouncing much of what he wrote in Tractatus. Perhaps i just realised Tractatus was a bunch of pretentious propositions in fancy avant garde style way before Ludwig did. Or maybe not. Either way. I haven't read Philosophical Investigations. So, sorry, i can't really comment on your point. Oh, wait. Your point was something else. You wanted to know if your stance on his work was a common position...i see. Well, i still can't help you buddy. I have no idea.
I know people swear by Tractatus. But i also know people are idiots. So, who knows?
Ha. The Jew of Linz. Yes, i'm familiar with the ideas in the book despite having never read it. It strikes me as a semi fictional exaggerated yet disguised as a true story type that you might see made into a film for daytime television with matter of fact text about what happened to each character following the end of the film but preceding the credits. You know, 'Sheila was found guilty of kidnap and sentenced to 14 months in prison. After prison Sheila married her former school teacher James Vodkaface. They moved to Arizona and had 3 children. One of those children was named John, just like John Akinfeyev, her co-kidnapper.' Eh.
And about David Lynch, hmm. I'm not that big a fan. Warped b-movies with over-affected psychological symbolism. Neitzsche, somebody i have read repeatedly, is a master psychologist and moralist. His abstracted deductions leave me in wonder at his genius. He, should i be allowed to guess what he would think, would be none too pleased at the thought of Lynch directing a film about him. Ha...by the by, did you see David Lynch in Louis (by Louis CK) season 3? Hilarious performance in a delightfully absurd show.
About your opening scene. Yes, i'd agree. That would work. Engaging the audience and presenting the state of mind of a tortured genius. What always struck me about that scenario is the precise similarity it shared with Dostoevsky's Raskolnikoff's dream about the horse being beaten. I mean, the two masters of modern psychology (analysis) - (Freud being the distant but still relevant third) - one of them wrote in detail about a tortured mind brought to frenzy and overload by a dream of a whipped and flogged horse, while the other actually encountered his overload, his breakdown, whilst witnessing a horse being whipped and flogged. Both were aware of the other but as far as i know neither had read the others work. It is nothing more than coincidence (although only a fool sees coincidence where a genius sees the hand of destiny) but yet it is incredibly interesting. To me, anyhow.
This was also referenced in the Sopranos, the greatest morality tale of depth and courage i have ever seen on tv, with Tony Soprano, the main character, compromising himself, his position and identifying himself to the audience as a sociopath, much like Raskolnikoff and Neitzsche, in the episodes where 1. The jockey was instructed to go heavy on the whip and beat the horse by Ralph - which led to Tony's evident disapproval and 2. where the horse is burnt to death and Tony overreacts, overstating some facts and over looking others. Despite his tyranical ways and evident narcissism Tony couldn't cope with the horse being beaten or killed. Anyways, this was another by the way.