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Between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment: The Self-Critical Rationalism of G. C. Lichtenberg

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Style, Politics and the Future of Philosophy

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 114))

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Abstract

Why are young widows in mourning so beautiful? (Investigation)1

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Notes

  1. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 122. All references to the aphorisms are to this edition. Unless otherwise indicated. Unless otherwise indicated all translations are my own.

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  2. For biographies of Lichtenberg see the magisterial study of Franz Mauthner, Lichtenberg: Geschichte seines Geistes (Berlin, 1968)

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  3. J. P. Stern, Lichtenberg: A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions (Bloomington, 1959)

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  4. Wolfgang Promies, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (Reinbeck bei Hamburg, 1964). I am particularly indebted to Stern in my presentation of Lichtenberg.

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  5. On Rameau’s Nephew see Herbert Josephs, Diderot’s Dialogue of Language and Gesture: Le neveu de Rameau (Columbus, 1969).

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  6. My presentation of Lichtenberg’s views on science draws heavily upon G. H. von Wright, “Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards et al. (New York, 1967), IV, pp. 461–65 and Stern’s discussion of the scientific aphorism

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  7. Cf. Mauthner, Lichtenberg, pp. 365–85 et passim; Promies Lichtenberg, pp. 56–100. Lichtenberg gave his name to the electromagnetic phenomenon known as Lichtenberg “stars” or figures.

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  8. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 204.

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  9. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p.178.

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  10. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 78.

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  11. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, ed. Rush Rhees (New York, 1958), p. 17.

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  12. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 9.

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  13. Ibid., p. 59.

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  14. Ibid., p. 132.

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  15. Ibid., p. 138.

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  16. Ibid., p. 193.

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  17. Ibid., p. 152.

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  18. Ibid., p. 38.

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  19. Ibid., p. 152.

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  20. Ibid., p. 203.

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  21. Ibid., p.237.

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  22. Loc. cit.

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  23. Ibid., p. 210.

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  24. Ibid., p.204.

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  25. Ibid., p. 135.

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  26. Ibid., p. 97.

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  27. Ibid., p. 107.

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  28. Ibid., p. 129.

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  29. Ibid., p. 89.

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  30. Brian McGuinness, “Freud and Wittgenstein,” Wittgenstein and His Times, ed B. F. McGuinness (Chicago, 1982), pp. 27–43.

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  31. I have explored some of these connections in my Essays on Wittgenstein and Weininger (“Studien zur österreichischen Philosophie,” Vol. 9; Amsterdam, 1985).

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  32. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 88.

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  33. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen (Frankfurt/Main, 19), I, p. 122.

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  34. Ibid., II, xii, p. 230. Lars Hertzberg was the first to point out the importance of fictive natural history in Wittgenstein’s thought.

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  35. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 61.

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  36. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, ed. G. H. von Wright and Heikki Nygaard, trans., Peter Winch (Chicago, 1980), p. 24, p. 75.

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  37. Actually, the author of Zettel. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford, 1967), p. 83.

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  38. See Erich F. Podach, Freidrich Nietzsches Werke des Zusammenbruchs (Heidelberg, 1961), p. 236.

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  39. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 121, p. 146, p. 155.

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  40. Ibid., p. 54.

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  41. Ibid., p. 69.

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  42. Ibid., p. 26.

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  43. Ibid., p. 120.

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  44. Ibid., p. 45.

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  45. Ibid., p. 111.

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  46. Walter Kaufmann, Discovering the Mind (3 vols.; New York, 1982), II, pp. 54–7.

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  47. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Kurt Batt (Frankfurt/Main, 1976), p. 131.

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  48. Cited in Stern, Lichtenberg, p. 286. His translation.

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  1. Brenner Archive, Innsbruck University, Austria

    Allan Janik

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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Janik, A. (1989). Between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment: The Self-Critical Rationalism of G. C. Lichtenberg. In: Style, Politics and the Future of Philosophy. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 114. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2251-8_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2251-8_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7508-4

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