ABSTRACT
In his paper “The Mysticism of the Tractatus”, B. F. McGuinness interprets Wittgenstein in terms of traditional mysticism. He argues by comparing the Tractatus to other mystical writings that in grasping the nature of a mystical experience we can understand the mystical content of the text. However, Eddy Zemach, in his paper “Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystical” (in Copi and Beard, Essays on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, EWT), rejects the notion that the passages on the mystical in the Tractatus are to be understood in terms of external views on mysticism; rather, he believes that the mysticism found in the text must be understood in terms of the text itself, in particular what Wittgenstein says about facts and language. Although both views of the Tractatus offer important insights into the topic of the mystical, the purpose of this chapter will be to expose that both papers are burdened with metaphysical theories. As we have considered in previous chapters, Wittgenstein rejects metaphysical language and denies philosophical doctrine. The key to understanding the difference between Zemach’s view of the Tractatus and the mystical reading I attempt to establish is that Zemach supports his theory by confusing Wittgenstein’s two references to reality, Wirklichkeit and Realität. In failing to make the distinction between the two, this chapter will show that he falsely connects the general form of a proposition with the passage on the mystical that states the mystical is that the world is. Before we turn to McGuinness and Zemach, we shall begin with a popular interpretation of Wittgenstein’s understanding of the mystical that draws upon similarities between Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein.
