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