Future, Present, & Past:



Speculative~~ Giving itself latitude and leisure to take any premise or inquiry to its furthest associative conclusion.
Critical~~ Ready to apply, to itself and its object, the canons of reason, evidence, style, and ethics, up to their limits.
Traditional~~ At home and at large in the ecosystem of practice and memory that radically nourishes the whole person.

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Friday, October 14, 2011

Wittgenstein, Reality and the Novel


This is directed at any philosophers or readers of literature in the neighborhood of the U of Hertfordshire. It's a plug for an upcoming (Oct 18) lecture by Bernard Harrison, who will be presenting a view of Wittgenstein he has been quietly and diligently refining and promoting for many decades now. Harrison is set apart from many for the close regard he gives to all ("early" and "late") Wittgenstein, which gives his stance, in my estimation, a thoroughness missing from those philosophies which try to valorize (or dismiss) one or the other. He is also an exceptional close reader of literary texts, and he reads with his heart as well as his mind. I, alas, am on the other side of the globe and cannot hear my old professor. If anyone learns of it being recorded, please let me know.
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2 comments:

  1. Philip CartwrightOctober 14, 2011 at 8:46 AM

    Unfortunately, I won't be able to make this, which is a shame as it's quite an interesting subject.

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  2. skholiastOctober 14, 2011 at 9:31 PM

    Harrison's book Inconvenient Fictions was published a good while ago, but lays out in some detail the general literary-critical stance that I presume the lecture is also presenting. However, the book that gives Harrison's more complete account of Wittgenstein is the recent one he wrote with Patricia Hanna, Word and World. From what I can derive from the abstract of the lecture, it looks to be in part an explicit dovetailing of these two projects. I commend both books to anyone who cares about L.W. or about the intersection of philosophy and literature.

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