Determinism & Apocolypse: the Grim Irony of Our Fortunate Fall

[Mark Kohut]

Imagine this reading group: The Vienna Circle philosophers----if interested, easily looked up---read and discussed Wittgenstein's Tractatus, his first book, TWICE when published, line-by-line-by-line.

We are in a great tradition.

--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Page <page at quesnelbc.com> wrote:

> From: Page <page at quesnelbc.com>
> Subject: Re: Determinism & Apocolypse: the Grim Irony of Our Fortunate Fall
> To: "Michael Bailey" <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>, "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 3:20 AM
> The "earlier Wittgenstein" was a
> positivist -- a hero of the Vienna Circle -- but he quickly
> found himself more and more at odds with positivism. The
> "later Wittgenstein" rejected the "earlier Wittgenstein."
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Bailey" <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 10:19 PM
> Subject: Re: Determinism & Apocolypse: the Grim Irony
> of Our Fortunate Fall
> 
> 
> > Thanks for all of these elucidations.
> > 
> > So, maybe the opposite of gnosticism is positivism,
> sort of?
> > 
> > "...to value more highly the little, unpretentious,
> cautious truths,
> > arrived at by rigorous methods, than those vast,
> floating, veiling
> > generalities for which the yearnings of a religious or
> artistic era reach."
> > (Nietzsche quote at the beginning of _Postivism_ by
> Richard von Mises)
> > 
> > I'm not going to pursue this, at least until I've
> learned the argument,
> > but based on what I know so far Pynchon's books are
> more positivist in nature,
> > (Wittgenstein swam in the positivist stream, too,
> didn't he?) and
> > depictive - and critical -
> > of Gnostic phenomena...
> > 
> > but I could easily enough be getting that wrong, so
> never mind
> > 
> 
> 
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