Wittgenstein's Analytic of the Mystical
Dissertation, New School for Social Research (
1997)
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Abstract
The dissertation presents an attempt at interpreting Wittgenstein's idea of Das Mystische. The analysis concentrates on his Notebook and on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus where he develops his views of the mystical. ;The interpretation aims at demonstrating that the concept of the mystical stands for an entire sphere--that of life--which includes the concepts of ethics, aesthetics, God, eternity, death, "living in the present," the states of "being happy or unhappy," of the ultimate ontological wondering at "that something is," etc.. This sphere, therefore, can become a subject of a special analytic which would disclose and make explicit its basic structures. All these concepts are interpreted as existential-ontological in the sense that they characterize the life of the unique, individual, finite human being, its very existence. Hence the title of the thesis: analytic of the mystical. ;Wittgenstein's early philosophy is placed and analyzed in a specific context. This is the transcendental philosophy of modernity, the major figure representing it being I. Kant. A number of Wittgenstein's tractarian propositions are seen from the perspective of the main line of the transcendental trend. Their interpretation presents an attempt at showing that the early Wittgenstein continues this tradition but is more radical and brings it up to its limits. In a sense, after Wittgenstein it is impossible to develop a foundational transcendental philosophy. The unfolding of its inner potentials leads to making explicit the underlying network of existential-ontological concepts, that is, to the idea of the mystical