Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Hitler and the Germans

Titel: Hitler and the Germans

Stichwort: Sprachspiel und Logik als Ausdruck des Verlustes der ersten Realität (Russel, Cervantes)

Kurzinhalt: The loss of reality expresses itself in the loss of contact of words. Words acquire their own existence; language becomes an independent reality in itself

Textausschnitt: 250b So you see that logic is in itself a closed system of relations in a given system. But if the system contains semantic errors, this is not a logical problem; rather, one is referred back to thinking. And now you have expressed the very interesting development of the divertissement-character of modern logic, for logic has nothing to do with thinking. If one is thinking, then one is no longer formally within logic, but related to empirical reality, and here it is a question of semantic problems that can be empirically resolved. Where one does not think, but only establishes objective relations between symbols, there is the area of formal logic and mathematics. That is to say, logic is no longer an instrument of thought, but an objective sphere between relation and time. Most of second reality is no longer related to first reality at all. However, the cases of Russell's paradox that occur here still have a relation to first reality insofar as they introduce thought symbols from the empirical sphere, and the mistakes are to be sought in the thought symbols. And they can then be resolved through the methods we have indicated. (Fs) (notabene)

251a Thus it pertains to the collapse of a society, when loss of reality and lack of contact with reality occur, that certain problems of the type of Russell's paradox appear as divertissement, in the sense that the playing about with paradoxes can and will become a divertissement because the intellectual contact of man with reality is interrupted. (Fs) (notabene)

Kommentar (02/15/06): Sehr interessant, die Einordnung der heute in der Phiosophie so vorherrschende Verliebtheit fr Logik und Sprache in den Zusammenhang einer Kultur eines Verlustes der Realität. Dazu zählt auch das Divertissement (Pascal) eines L'art pour L'art.

251b I have, then, cited three examples for you. The Eleatic problems, within the phenomena of the disintegration of the Greek polis in the fifth century B.C. Then these very interesting cases in Cervantes, where that disintegration again becomes acute. (There are also some interesting cases in the Middle Ages with the decline of the medieval order and the emergence of nominalism.) And then in the modern period, with the decline of the bourgeoisie, where also, after these problems had been long forgotten, they again came into question semantically in logic in the nineteenth century. Thus the conflicts between two realities, through which the problem of divertissement became a problem in terms of experience and also a social problem. (Fs) (notabene)

251c With this, we have arrived at the point where we unfortunately must break off from the question of how that appeared to Musil and Doderer. However, I must do that in the next lecture. The Man Without Qualities requires somewhat more time. (Fs)
(Tenth Lecture)

251d Certain phenomena of the second reality always emerge at times of social crises. For example, during the Eleatic period there was the collapse of the polis and the Cretan paradox; at the end of the Middle Ages, there was Cervantes' Don Quixote, and in the modern period, the example of Russell and Wittgenstein indicate that concern with the logical problems of the second reality runs parallel to symptoms of social decline. (Fs) (notabene)

252a The loss of reality expresses itself in the loss of contact of words. Words acquire their own existence; language becomes an independent reality in itself. This symptom can first be seen in the Romantic period. Father of gymnastics Jahn coined the term "Volkstums" in the first place to purify language,- it was to replace the foreign word "nationality." But later, Volkstum was understood as "the essence of a Volk." (Fs)