ABSTRACT
Wittgenstein reacted against two great idols of the early modern age – against metaphysics in his first book, against the ideal of progress to be achieved by natural science in his later writings. But it would be ridiculous to categorize him by these party-labels. ‘“Absage an die Metaphysik”! Als ob das was neues wäre!’ (‘ “Renunciation of metaphysics”! As if that were something new!’), he said to Waismann when the Vienna Circle manifesto was being planned. Not this slogan, but the work done by philosophers should be what they presented to the world. And his work – the Tractatus in this case – was a brilliant refutation of metaphysics by the use of its own methods. We must not think of him as akin to Kant – taking a different route to the same destination – because here it is the route itself that matters, not the form of words used at the end of it. Nor does his distrust of natural science put him in Heidegger’s camp. He precisely does not think that there can be a superior science of ontology. The catalogue of misunderstandings could continue.
