Dublin Opinion

We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been
answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.” Wittgenstein, 1919.

Derek Jarman introduced me to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Not personally, of course, but still, it’s down to him. I first saw his 1993 film biog of the man in the Lighthouse cinema on Abbey Street - now the site of Arnott’s car park. The script was written by Terry Eagleton, Ken Butcher, and Jarman himself. I must admit, my initial fascination with Wittgenstein was not exactly a philosophical one. It was more down to the fact that he moved to Ireland in the 1940s, and wrote part of his final work here. I didn’t get around to reading anything by Wittgenstein until about four years after I had watched Jarman’s movie. It was then I sat down to read “Tractatus Logio Philosophicus“, Wittgenstein’s first book, and the only one published during his lifetime. I fell in love with it immediately. It has been described as a mixture of diamond-sharp logic and religious mysticism. I thought it absolutely brilliant, and still do.

From November 1948 to June 1949 Wittgenstein lived in Dublin. He stayed at the Ross hotel, Parkgate Street, which is now the Aisling hotel. During his time here, Wittgenstein used to visit the Botanic gardens. He would go to one of the hothouses and sit down and have a good ‘aul think. The period of Wittgenstein’s sojourn in Dublin coincided with the coldest winter on record - one that saw all domestic football cancelled as a result of the weather.

It’s funny, but the thought of anyone coming to Dublin in order to work out ANY philosophical questions is something that I just cannot get my head around. But there you go.

It’s a fairly straight-forward walk from the Botanic Gardens to the Aisling Hotel, so in honour of the great man I set off last Thursday to recreate the steps he took, to see whether the city could rise up to the challenge and inspire in me some of the great thoughts that came to Wittgenstein as he strolled around a winter Dublin in the frozen ’40s. A bit of a tall order, maybe, but hey, when blogging is the most productive part of your day, it’s fairly safe to say that a mid-morning walk through the city’s streets aint exactly holding you up from anything. When God made time, he made loads of it - and he seems to have given it all to me.

6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it
exists.” (Tractatus)

That line has always stuck with me.

There is not one part of the world that we can point to and say, “this is mystical.” Rather, the very fact that the world exists in the first place is what is mystical.
That is quite liberating statement, for it implies that mysticism, if it exists at all, is everywhere. As such, it is not only here:

but also here:

The difference between both places lies within aesthetics, and not within mysticism - it lies between conceptions of beauty, and not spirituality.

What a wonderful idea! If Wittgenstein is correct, and it is the world that is mystical, and not elements of it, then the pursuit of mysticism is really the pursuit of a certain aesthetic. For example, according to Wikipedia (well, it is an online article), the Anglican writer Evelyn Underhill identified five stages of the “universal mystic way” - “the actual process by which the mystic arrives at union with the absolute.” These are:

1. The awakening, the stage in which one begins to have some consciousness of absolute or divine reality.
2. Purgation, which is characterized by an awareness of one’s own imperfections and finiteness.
3. Illumination, which is reached by artists and visionaries as well as being the final stage of some mystics.
4. The dark night of the soul. This stage, experienced by the few, is one of final and complete purification and is marked by confusion, helplessness, stagnation of the will, and a sense of the withdrawal of God’s presence.
5. Union with the object of love, the one Reality, God. Here the self has been permanently established on a transcendental level and liberated for a new purpose.

All well and good, but with the mystic everywhere - because existence itself is mystical - then the above is no more, nor no less, than a certain, rigorous, and disciplined, aesthetic that is applied to one’s life.

It is not without merit, but it is not a mystical path. There are no purely mystical paths, because, again, the mystic is everywhere.There are no more revelations about the mystical nature of existence, other than the fact that it is.

5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found? You will say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.” (Tractatus)

As I make my way down Phibsborough Road, heading towards Broadstone and Constitution Hill, Wittgenstein has me thinking that what passes for aesthetics these days is the commodification of aesthetics - and aesthetics has a hell of a lot more to offer than profit margins. The Design Research Group has been chipping away at this view of culture and beauty for a good while now, and well worth reading - for myself, it appears that what passes for philosophical and mystical questions in this world, are in fact aesthetic ones. The ideas of culture - its hierarchies, definitions, concepts, and insights - can give us insights to how we are as people. It is a far more interesting pursuit than the philosophical cul-de-sac of whether the mystic can be found in this world or not.

6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.” (Tractatus)

Wittgenstein died on 29 April, 1951. His final words were, “Tell them I had a wonderful life.” I made it as far as the Aisling hotel on my little rainly walk, and snapped away at the memorial to Wittgenstein beside the entrance, but thought the final minutes from Jarman’s movie a more fitting tribute.
Enjoy.