Weininger accepts that the human being is an animal and has developed as such. Thus we cannot escape the “animal logic” of our ancestry. This makes it natural for him to adopt a symbolism in terms of animal prototypes. Thus the dog signifies criminality. This is a type lacking a feeling of moral direction, and strives to satisfy only his own cravings. He is the opposite of Nietzsche's “Übermensch”. The horse, on the other hand, signifies madness. These terms can also be used to classify genius; the genius is either the reverse of criminality or of madness.

  Even if inherited from the animal within us, we may choose the terms in which our person judges his thoughts and actions. Morality cannot be imposed from the outside, each one has to work it out for himself. No absolute Kantian imperative can be found. In this manner we can understand the deep relations Weininger sees between accepting logical statements and ethical issues. They cannot be derived from anything else, because then they would not be fundamental choices. To exist one has to choose a pattern of living. Only within such a framework can moral attitudes be constituted.

  Weininger connects the possibility of an ethical attitude to the unidirectionality of time; we have to make our choices for the future; our past actions are beyond amendments. Weininger states:

  The unidirectionality of time is identical with the fact that in its essence a human being is a willing being.…

  The riddle of time is identical with the riddle of life (though not with the riddle of the world).…

  The problem of the unidirectionality of time is the question of the goal of life.

  The position of the individual is that he is put into the midst of life and has to find his role in accepting this.

  (p.140) For man to succeed in finding the goal of life, he will have to say “yes” to the world as he finds it; this is an enormous “yes”.

  This seems to point to an early emergence of the existentialist approach to living in reality.

  Influence on Wittgenstein

  As we noted, Wittgenstein regarded Weininger as making an “enormous mistake”, which could be corrected by negating the whole presentation. So what is there in the approach which is so totally wrong? It cannot be any individual statement, even if Wittgenstein certainly disagreed with many of them. It must be the full premises of the work, its very soul.

  Weininger presented his work as an investigation into principles. The illuminations he chose from the contemporary debate were not essential to the main message of the book. So if we are to find what Wittgenstein regarded as false, we have to look at the total approach.

  Weininger strived to introduce ideal categories against which to judge the imperfect features of reality. These are to be taken as essences of e.g. “maleness” and “womanhood”. This does not necessitate the creation of a formal technical language:

  The most extraordinary wisdom is concealed in common speech, a wisdom which reveals itself to a few ardent explorers, but which is usually overlooked by the stupid professional philologists.

  Here Wittgenstein would undoubtedly have agreed; in his later writings he constantly fought against the “bewitchment of our intelligence by language”. But he was no friend of “essences” and contrasted the impression of an object to itself:

  We find ourselves dogmatically conferring on the object properties which only the prototype possesses.

  Wittgenstein develops his discourse in a way that differs from Weininger's method. The linguistic tools are only to be used as a means of comparison, never to offer a full picture of the intended object. They are limited to things “which can be said”. The formal logical issues have no consequences for how we live our lives. There is knowledge which cannot be transmitted by the formal linguistic means. Examples are how we play games, perform art, or decide about morals. Thus we have to investigate how language is used in its multifarious aspects. These observations can be utilized by the individual to define his own identity. Logical systems can be of no help. There can be no “theory of philosophy” because it would have to be based on something else. The fact that we may state the dualism “A” and “not‐A” carries no weight in existential issues.

  In modern philosophy, truth for the individual cannot be derived from anything. The ego cannot be captured by rational analysis. Its constituents (p.141) are multifarious and consist of many different aspects depending on the circumstances. The Cartesian skepticism is not going far enough; the “I think” has to assume an “I” as the subject. But this subject cannot be part of our experience, because it is having the experience. The solipsistic view that the world is my experience does not conflict with the possibility to describe the world realistically. The ego uses a language to describe its experience, and the existence of a language assumes the existence of something. Analogously the world of another may be equally realistic, but if the two worlds are described in the same way we have achieved a scientific consensus.

  We are now in the position to try to elucidate the relationship between Weininger and Wittgenstein. First they agree on many things. Both regard ordinary language as the tool to structure reality. Many of the issues and formulations of the later Wittgenstein carry a decidedly Weiningerian stamp.

  The difference is, just as we might expect, in the totality of the approach. Weininger introduced ideal essences which allowed him to order the phenomena according to a scale based on similarities and differences. Wittgenstein denies the existence of ideal terms, he wants to catch the linguistic usage by investigating the actual use of sayings as applied to actual situations. Then he finds that meanings cannot be ordered in one‐dimensional hierarchies but compose a multitude of intentional actions living their life according to the web of language usage in the appropriate societies. No a priori essences can be posited to aid the classification. The structure of reality transcends our mental and linguistic tools.

  Thus there is a basic rift between the whole approach of Weininger's work and the views of Wittgenstein. Even if both are motivated by the same public debate and define the same personal problems, no elucidation by Weininger can change the basic method of analysis. Even so, Wittgenstein was attracted by the moral sincerity of Weininger; he had himself exactly the same moral approach to philosophizing. There is no essential difference between the issue of one's sins and acceptance of logic. Both are founded in individual choices based on personal experience. However, the methods the two choose to collect the necessary experience differ profoundly. The difference becomes only more manifest because the same problems are discussed.

  We thus see that in spite of their inheritance from the cultural atmosphere of fin‐de‐siècle Vienna, Weininger and Wittgenstein reacted completely differently to the challenges offered by the contemporary debate. The former tried to identify from the outside ideal concepts which could be utilized, so to speak to gauge the position of each phenomenon on a well‐defined essential scale. Wittgenstein rejects this approach; he works from the inside of human experience and tries to see the actual pragmatic use underlying our communication with the environment including other individuals. Thus he can consider the whole book by Weininger as one single enormous mistake. In denying the whole exposition, he may take exactly the opposite approach, and thus find that this denial makes for a truth which can be seen to follow from Weininger's work. Applications to special cases and different phenomena need not change this; only the total (p.142) pattern is important. And this can be treated as a single statement which can be the object of negation. This way even an “enormous mistake” can give rise to great truth.

  As Niels Bohr expresses himself: “A deep truth is one the opposite of which is a deep truth too.”

  5.2.3. Role of Boltzmann

  Ludwig Bolzmann

  Boltzmann (1844–1906) is one of the genuine pioneers of modern science. He contributed in many ways to the emergence of modern physics at the turn of the century. His main achievement, however, was in the foundations of statistical mechanics. He was one of the first researchers to understand the profound significance of Maxwell's introduction of probabilistic concepts in gas dynamics. For this he had to accept the reality and significance of the concept of an atom (and consequently a molecule). In spite of the opposition, partly spearheaded by Mach, he pursued his research which forged a solid foundation for thermal equilibrium and the approach to it. The Boltzmann transport equation is a lasting edifice to his memory. His written papers were meticulously produced but unfortunately far from easily accessible to his contemporaries. Consequently the, writings by Gibbs, which are in many ways more formal, became known sooner to the research community.

  Boltzmann had a thorough education in philosophy even if he did not set out to emphasize this in his research. However, the intellectual atmosphere in Austria compelled him to look into the conceptual foundations of his work. This led to his appointment to the chair in natural philosophy when Mach retired. In this capacity, he wrote a series of popular articles where he lays out his views [14]. Here all quotations of Boltzmann are from this collection.

  As a physicist, Boltzmann was an ontological realist; he considered physical objects as real. The theories proposed to describe them he regarded as free creations of the human mind. They are validated by their success only; the right theories survive, the useless ones disappear. Here Boltzmann was strongly influenced by the Darwinian model of biological evolution, and he applied it to mental phenomena too. Consequently his views were closely similar to those of the contemporary pragmatic movement. However, he does not seem to have been aware of this.

  Boltzmann's life ended sadly in suicide in 1906. This was presumably not caused by the opposition to his physics, there he was confident enough, but rather by a general depression possibly precipitated by his failing eyesight, which threatened to blind him in the not too distant future.

  Here our interest in Boltzmann derives from his being a forerunner of Wittgenstein. He is listed as one of the three physicists influencing Wittgenstein who, it is known, had intended to study with Boltzmann—a plan that was thwarted by the suicide.

  (p.143) It is thus certain that Wittgenstein had read Boltzmann's essays. However, it is surprising how close to Wittgenstein's ideas one comes in reading Boltzmann. Both the demarcation of meaningful propositions from metaphysics as well as the interdict against meaningless statements are found in Boltzmann's works.

  Surprisingly enough, also the roots of scientific positivism emerge from the texts. It seems unlikely that Bohr knew the writings of Boltzmann, but their general tenets are clearly discernible in Bohr's philosophy. Such ideas thus seemed to linger in the scientific community.

  Empiricism

  Boltzmann as a scientist obviously had to take a realistic view of matter. In particular, his use of the concept of “atom” was granted evident existence: “It would, of course, be absurd to prove or disprove the objective existence of matter.”

  He realized that knowledge can only build on a shared platform of agreed concepts (cf. Wittgenstein's On Certainty).

  The wealth of experience as well as words and ideas used for denoting it, must be presumed as known if we are to understand each other at all, and that we cannot define everything.

  The ideas of the thinker himself cannot be left out of the world picture if the world picture is not to vanish completely.

  Bohr would have stood behind this, if he had known Boltzmann's writings, which is unlikely. Theories have to be built consistently and according to the progress of science:

  Progress in thinking must be sought by eliminating such forms of inference and concepts which do not inform but mislead and even entangle us in contradictions if we apply modes of thought transferred to cases where they do not fit. Actions that are followed by things we desire and ideas that are correct and economical as well, we denote as correct.

  Those theories which work are selected by a Darwinian process (cf. Popper's falsification):

  Of opinions sufficiently often confirmed by experience, we say that they are certain and that what they express belongs to our knowledge.

  What leads to correct deeds is true.

  What then will be the position of the so‐called laws of thought? In the light of Darwin's theory, they will be nothing but inherited habits of thought.

  Here we are very close to a pragmatism of James's brand. As pointed out above, it seems, however, unlikely that Bolzmann knew about James.

  Human mind

  The insight that all scientific activity plays on a mental arena will require some elaboration.

  (p.144) It is a peculiar drive of the human spirit to make itself such a picture and to adapt it to the external world. The immediate elaboration and constant perfection of this picture is then the chief task of theory. The more abstract the theoretical investigation, the more powerful it becomes.

  Words and therefore concepts we can form as we wish.

  The ability to form mental constructs seems to like stretching beyond what is motivated by the actually experienced:

  The drive towards philosophizing seems ineradicably innate.

  Metaphysics seems to cast an irresistible spell on the human mind.

  The eminent importance of the right method explains why men soon started to think not just about things but also about the method of thinking itself; thus arose the so‐ called theory of knowledge, which in spite of certain tang of old‐style metaphysics now discredited, is highly important to science.

  The mental processes tend to acquire a life of their own.

  It is indeed true that we could have no experience if certain forms of linking perception, that is forms of thought, were not innate to us.

  However nothing seems less founded than an inference from this a priori to absolute certainty and infallibility.

  The simplest things the philosopher finds puzzling. These, however, are nothing but the inappropriate and mistaken mental re‐shaping of what is given, which cannot contain any contradictions.

  It is indeed so that the forms of thought that have become habitual are not quite adapted to the abstract problems of philosophy.

  Niels Bohr always was very careful not to state more about a physical phenomenon than he could express in “habitual forms of thought”, i.e. common language:

  Since we cannot clearly express such complicated conditions by words, whether written, spoken or thought, we must collocate words to lend the most fitting expression of the given.

  When these concepts and pictures are applied to metaphysical questions, we seem to approach what Wittgenstein termed Unsagbares.

  In this way a deception of the intellect supervenes with philosophical problems. Our subjective feeling, that is fine and lofty which advances and raises our species, objectively these concepts do not exist.

  Theories and reality

  In order to communicate experience between individuals, Niels Bohr always stressed the need for unambiguous descriptions. Boltzmann writes:

  If I am to make myself understood, I must adopt a language in which all exist on the same footing (“objectively”). This adherence to the language of others which is given me in (p.145)experience (because learnt) I call the objective point of view, in contrast to the subjective one.

  Boltzmann, as an empirical physicist, affirms that our scientific progress provides knowledge about reality:

  Theory is only a mental picture of phenomena, related to them as sign is to designatum.

  Hertz is not looking for a satisfactory mechanical derivation of these fundamental equations. He points out that the correctness of all these equations is not the few experiments from which they are usually derived, but rather their subsequent agreement with almost all known facts. As we have these equations, we better write them down without derivation, compare them with phenomena and regard constant agreement as the best proof that the equations are correct.

  Here we encounter the “context of discovery” as contrasted to “context of verification”. Boltzmann realizes that even the best theory is underdetermined by the empirical evidence; we cannot prove a theory “right”:

  The assertion that a given theory is the only correct one can only express the subjective conviction that there could not be another equally simple and fitting image.

  Maxwell warned against regarding a particular view of nature the only correct one merely because a series of consequences flowing from it has been confirmed by experience. He gives many examples how a group of phenomena can be explained in two totally different ways, both modes of explanation representing the facts equally well.

  The new approach compensates the abandonment of complete congruence with nature by the correspondingly more striking appearance of points of similarity.

 

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