Pynchon and postmodernism

[jbor]

>> With Wittgenstein you have continually tried to gloss over the fact that
> the
>> Tractatus did, and was always meant to, pave the way for the
> Investigations.
>> 
> This might give subscribers the impression that Wittgenstein wrote the
> Tractatus expecting to follow it with the Investigations. As far as I know,
> Wittgenstein did not do so. After the Tractatus was published in the early
> 1920s, he considered reactions to it, devoted more of his own thoughts to a
> variety of philosophical issues, and came up with the observations
> posthumously published as Philosophical Investigations in the 1950s.
>
> Looking back, he likened the Tractatus to a ladder he could kick away,
> having used it to reach the level of thought represented by Philosophical
> Investigations. I believe he was surprised by the realization. I'd be
> interested in seeing documentation that suggests otherwise.

I'm not sure what the quibble is here. Yes, it's possible that Wittgenstein
wrote the Tractatus not expecting to follow it with anything. That isn't the
point I was making. The point is that his work from the early-to-mid 20s on,
which culminated in the Investigations, was, and was always intended to be,
a reaction to the Tractatus, but more especially it was a critique of the
philosophical tradition from which the Tractatus derives.

The point is that you can't simply hold the Tractatus up as the definitive
statement of Wittgenstein's philosophy -- in other words, you can't read the
Tractatus except in the light of the Investigations. I'd bet money that
Pynchon was well aware of that as he was writing V.

best