Uncertain Beginnings. Introduction

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2 Introduction Uncertain Beginnings Wittgenstein s decision to become a teacher shocked many of those who knew him, including his family. His sister Hermine found it very difficult to accept initially until her brother told her in oblique language that teaching would help him to cope with the inner turbulence which he was then experiencing.1 He had changed a great deal since the beginning of the war (World War I), she wrote in her memoir, and wanted to give away all the wealth which he had inherited on his father s death.2 Wittgenstein s choice of such a completely ordinary occupation as elementary school teaching 1 In her memoir My Brother Ludwig, published in Rush Rhees s Recollections of Wittgenstein (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), Hermine states that her brother had profoundly changed in a religious direction and wanted to give away his considerable wealth (which he had inherited like his siblings after his father s death) and had taken to reading Tolstoy s version of the Gospels. She adds that when her brother chose a completely ordinary occupation by becoming an elementary schoolteacher out in the country, she found this decision extremely difficult to understand (ibid., 3 4). Wittgenstein also wrote to Engelmann between 1918 and 1925 describing his personal difficulties, his thoughts about suicide and his problems with other people. See Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, Brian McGuinness, ed (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967). 2 He was influenced in this by his reading of Tolstoy s book, The Gospel in Brief and by his knowledge of Tolstoy s life and ascetical views. Wittgenstein had come across Tolstoy s book while a soldier and re-read it many times. Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, 78, also claims that what prompted Wittgenstein was an overpowering and no doubt long-suppressed urge to cast off all encumbrances that imposed an insupportable burden on his attitude to the outside world: his fortune as well as his necktie. It is clear too that Wittgenstein was experiencing what is nowadays called post-traumatic stress which together with his anxieties about himself and his future and the publication of the Tractatus, would also explain his negative post-war views about himself and his thoughts of suicide.

3 2 Introduction did not make sense to Hermine (nor presumably to his other siblings), given her brother s high level of intelligence and distinguished research record first at the University of Manchester and then at Trinity College Cambridge prior to However, when he told her that teaching provided him with respite from his own inner turbulence since, as he put it, he was like someone just about managing to stay on his feet during a violent storm, she accepted his decision and later came to regard him as a wonderful teacher, which indeed he turned out to be.3 In fact, Wittgenstein s state of psychological turbulence, of which Bertrand Russell was well aware due to their conversations in Cambridge (Wittgenstein arrived there in 1911), was evident before World War I and is documented in 1913 (possibly around Christmas of that year, according to Brian McGuinness)4 by Wittgenstein himself in a letter to Russell sent from Vienna: Here I feel different every day. Sometimes things inside me are in such a ferment that I think I m going mad: then the next day I am totally apathetic again. But deep inside me there s a perpetual seething, like the bottom of a geyser, and I keep on hoping that things will come to an eruption once and for all, so that I can turn into a different person [ ]. Perhaps you regard this thinking about myself as a waste of time but how can I be a logician before I m a human being! For the most important thing is to come to terms with myself!5 As a soldier fighting at the front, it was inevitable that he should have also been affected by his wartime experience which together with the tragedies of his brothers suicides and his own earlier fears about himself, particularly his thoughts of suicide, madness and his difficulties with 3 Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 4. See also footnotes 1 and 2 above. Wittgenstein in his correspondence with Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, 53, was sometimes very despondent about his teaching career, although others perceived his qualities as a teacher and as a person much more positively. 4 See Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents , 4th edn (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), Letter See also McGuinness, Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents , Letter 59, 65.

4 Uncertain Beginnings 3 sexuality,6 resulted in his state of inner turmoil from which he thought a career teaching children might give him some respite and help him to live a more stable life. We also know from his Notebooks how concerned he was with the kind of theological issues that had personal significance for him which when taken in conjunction with his conviction at that stage that he had said all that could be said about philosophy (published in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1922),7 one can understand that his post-war mood was one of deflation, uncertainty and confusion where he seemed to be mentally and psychologically adrift.8 However, his introduction to teacher-training had its difficulties too and in a letter to Bertrand Russell on 6 October 1919 in which he tells his friend about his decision to enrol in a teacher-training college in Austria, he admits to mixed feelings about taking up teaching as a career.9 He often feels miserable in the college, as he told Russell. This was probably because he was ten years older than the other trainee teachers in his class and being a rather awkward person in any case, did not socialise much with his classmates. He must have stood out among them as a most unusual if gifted older student whose wartime record as a decorated soldier and his exceptionally privileged and remarkable family and academic background contributed to their perception of him as a somewhat odd outsider whose austere yet impressive demeanour was off-putting.10 We also know from his correspondence with Engelmann how much he was haunted by thoughts 6 See W. W. Bartley III, Wittgenstein (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court Press, 1994), For an excellent account of his early adult years, see McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life. 8 He took up a variety of jobs/careers from 1918 to 1929 spending some time as a gardener, in a monastery, working on his sister s house as an architect, as well as teaching in elementary schools. 9 See McGuinness, Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents, , Letter 67, In common with many adult or mature students returning to learning, Wittgenstein s general position would have been by no means unique, then or now, in colleges or universities where such students are in the minority.

5 4 Introduction of suicide and how unhappy he said he was generally around this time.11 In one letter to Engelmann dated 19 February 1920, Wittgenstein writes: The external conditions of my life are pitiable, and this is wearing down my morale. And I have nothing to hold on to. The one good thing in my life just now is that I sometimes read fairy-tales to the children at school. It pleases them and relieves the strain on me. But otherwise things are in a mess for yours truly.12 Wittgenstein s uncertainties about teaching were to continue13 and in 1925 he wrote to his Cambridge friend, the economist, J. M. Keynes: I am still (a) teacher and don t want any money at present. I have decided to remain (a) teacher, as long as I feel that the troubles that I get into that way, may do me some good. If one has a toothache, it is good to put a hot-water bottle on your face, but it will only be effective, as long as the heat of the bottle gives you some pain which will do my character any good. That is, if people here don t turn me out before that time.14 Written when he was well into his school-teaching career at that stage (with not too long to go), Wittgenstein now seems to see his teaching work as a character forming exercise. His last remark above was to become a reality before long and ultimately he decided to leave school teaching because of his loss of patience with a child and his difficulties at Hassbach in Lower Austria in 1925 with his fellow teachers and the parish priest,15 coupled with his renewed interest in returning to academic life in Cambridge, which he eventually did in See Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), 29, 33, 34-5 and Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), These uncertainties also surfaced later about his lecturing career at Cambridge and the ability of his students and academic colleagues to understand his work. See also James Klagge, Wittgenstein in Exile (Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press, 2011). 14 McGuinness, Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents , Letter 112, Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, The event that seems to have decided him (though there is some dispute about this see his confession to Fania Pascal in Chapter 5) was slapping a boy suffering from

6 Uncertain Beginnings 5 Taken as a whole, however, Wittgenstein s teaching experience at three country village schools in rural Austria would appear to have been quite successful, despite his own reservations. In his Editor s Appendix to Paul Engelmann s book, Brian McGuinness states that [Wittgenstein] was very absorbed in the practical tasks of teaching and would take immense pains in preparing his work and in looking after the interests of his pupils. It is true to say that he did not find it easy to live among the farmers of these villages, but even there he made friends among his colleagues and neighbours, and friends also visited him. With these, with his favourite authors, and in music he found some peace. To those who knew him then it did not seem a time of unrelieved unhappiness.17 Indeed, Wittgenstein proved himself to be a remarkable teacher who was innovative and inspiring to those whom he taught with a hands-on attitude where his method could be described as learning by doing, thereby developing in his students a capacity for problem-solving. We know this from his sister Hermine s account and from others comments on his work, as we have seen. He initiated, for example, a school project in literacy by getting his students to compile a dictionary of local Austrian words which when completed was submitted to the relevant board of education that were extremely impressed by it. Wittgenstein announced that the compiled dictionary is adapted to the children s vocabulary and to the individual age groups. 18 And it served as a model Dictionary for Elementary Schools in which its aims and reasons were stated as follows: The goal of this dictionary is to fill an urgent need with respect to the present teaching of orthography.19 It is the result of the author s practical experience. In order to improve orthographical writing: in his class and, in order to enable students to epilepsy. In a letter to Engelmann, Wittgenstein also admits to finding the then local parish priest and some others difficult to cope with. 17 Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein and a Memoir, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions, , James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, eds (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), Orthography involves the study of writing systems, correct spelling etc.

7 6 Introduction inform themselves about the spelling of a word, the author found it necessary to supply them with dictionaries.20 Wittgenstein declared that one of the functions of his dictionary was to help students find a word as quickly as possible and retain its meaning, the objective of which was that each student was held completely responsible for the spelling of what he has written because it furnishes him with reliable measures for finding and correcting his mistakes, provided he has the mind to do so. 21 Then there is the self-corrective aspect: It is, however, absolutely necessary that the student corrects his compositions on his own. He should feel that he is the only author of his work and he alone should be responsible for it. It is also this independent correction that encourages the teacher to get a correct picture of the student s knowledge and of his mental capacities.22 We can see here the detailed pedagogical thinking that fuelled this project. His interest in language had, of course, predated his teaching career, extending as we know from 1910 or thereabouts into his first period at Trinity College, Cambridge, and this must have informed his school literacy project which, in turn, as Engelmann suggests, also contributed to his later language-game theory.23 As an exercise in problem-solving, this project typified his pedagogical approach which reappears later in its philosophical form in his researches and discourses with his students at Cambridge. In her memoir, his sister Hermine described his pedagogy in elementary school and the effect it had on his students there: On one occasion he had (the students) inventing a steam engine, on another designing a tower on the blackboard, and on yet another depicting moving human figures. The interest which he aroused was enormous. Even the ungifted and usually inattentive among the boys came up with astonishingly good answers, and they were positively climbing over each other to be given a chance to answer or to demonstrate a point PO, PO, PO, Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein and a Memoir, 114 et seq. 24 Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 5.

8 Uncertain Beginnings 7 She does point out, however that such teaching skills alone are not sufficient to earn the accolade of being a good teacher and cites the lack of patience her brother often displayed which finally, as was said, resulted in his resignation from school-teaching which in turn led him back to the academic environment of Trinity College: However, an elementary schoolteacher must not only have the ability to present material in an interesting way and to bring on gifted children (indeed to take them further than was laid down in the syllabus). He must also have the patience, skill and experience to ensure the ungifted, the lazy and girls with their heads full of other things leave school equipped with the most basic and essential knowledge. He also needs patience and skill in dealing with the often extremely ignorant parents. Ludwig simply did not have this patience, and in the end his teaching career foundered on the lack of these qualities.25 Hermine puts a positive gloss on his departure from school teaching, saying that this heralded yet another phase of his development 26 which was certainly true. It did happen, as was said, that he had difficulties too at Cambridge with the inability of his university students (and colleagues) to understand his thinking and he was not slow to display his irritation, frustration and sometimes anger there when confronted by this failure to be understood. If there is anything that Wittgenstein s difficulty teaches us pedagogically, it is the essential need for patience when teaching others. Perhaps Wittgenstein s displays of teaching by thinking out loud at length in front of his students may have gone some way towards helping him cope with the lack of understanding that he deplored in those whom he taught.27 He also confessed at times to his students that he was not a good teacher yet he proved stimulating and charismatic in his ability to inspire many of those whom he taught, despite their difficulties in understanding what he had to say. This raises an interesting pedagogical question about the kind of learning that can occur even when one is taught by someone 25 Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, For some detail on this, see Klagge, Wittgenstein in Exile, 5 17 and also Fania Pascal s memoir in Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein,

9 8 Introduction like Wittgenstein whose thinking is difficult to follow but yet can inspire those present to try to live up to the standards set. Wittgenstein s despondency about his impact on others was well summed up by his own observation made in 1945 in the Preface to his Philosophical Investigations when he wrote: It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another but of course it is not likely. However, despite this sceptical observation, he also ended on this more positive note: I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.28 Wittgenstein continued to think about teaching throughout his life and many of his remarks and observations are contained in Culture and Value. One such comment that may seem quite controversial now is where he suggests that suffering can have a useful role to play in learning and in the development of character. He mentioned this earlier in connection with his own school-teaching career, as we have seen, in his letter to Keynes and in 1948, we find a somewhat similar comment this time directed towards parents and students and even teachers themselves: I think that present day education of human beings aims at decreasing the capacity for suffering. Nowadays a school counts as good, if the children have a Good time. And formerly that was not the yardstick. And parents would like children to become the way they themselves are (only more so) & yet give them an education which is quite different from their own. Capacity for suffering is not highly rated, since there are not supposed to be any sufferings, really they are out of date. (CV, 89e) 28 See by comparison Wittgenstein s earlier 1918 Preface to the Tractatus: Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it or at least similar thoughts. So it is not a textbook. Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it (3).

10 Uncertain Beginnings 9 At first glance, many today would reject such a view out of hand though Wittgenstein might respond with some comment similar to the one made to Drury when he said of this I am certain, that we are not here to have a good time. Perhaps a less contentious interpretation of the sentiments expressed in the above passage might be that if one accepts that suffering is part of the human condition (which Wittgenstein certainly did) then it makes sense to say that because of the inevitable difficulties in understanding that arise in learning, suffering has its place in that context as an aspect of education to be taken on board. Indeed, Wittgenstein s own struggles to think publicly often displayed his suffering in his efforts to resolve the problems that he encountered when trying to formulate his ideas. Alice Ambrose describes what happened: Wittgenstein worked very hard in lectures, sometimes with perspiration streaming down his face [ ]. There is no saying whether this was because of the difficulty of articulating ideas which he still had not thought his way through, but this is possible.29 The current view that school should be a warm welcoming environment in which students efforts are encouraged and their mistakes seen as opportunities for learning (Wittgenstein would certainly have agreed with the latter) is to be welcomed of course as a very important factor in encouraging learning compared with the past where students were compelled to learn in a punitive ethos. The feelings of fear and intimidation which children and older students then experienced when intimidated by threats of physical and psychological punishment is rightly rejected now as being, not only inhumane, but a serious obstacle to learning and not a helpful motivating factor, as used to be thought by some. That being said, learning is nevertheless hard work as experience teaches, and that is a fact that cannot be ignored either. Wittgenstein s views on pedagogy clearly need to be examined with a critical eye though this study will argue that his pedagogical observations and conclusions are on the whole impressive and stand as a significant testimony to the depth of his understanding of what is involved in education, 29 Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerovitch, eds, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language (London and New York: George Allen and Unwin, 1972), 15.

11 10 Introduction both from a theoretical and practical point of view. There is an interesting example he gives of what might be considered to constitute good teaching although Wittgenstein has his doubts. The piece occurs in Culture and Value and was recorded in 1940: A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teacher, for it may be that, while his pupils are under his immediate influence, he raises them to a level which is not natural to them, without developing their capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again once the teacher leaves the schoolroom. Perhaps this holds for me; I have thought about this. (CV, 43e) He adds in brackets that it was similar with Mahler, the composer, who was an excellent orchestral conductor but in whose absence the orchestra seemed to collapse at once if he was not conducting it himself (ibid.) The piece above speaks for itself about how teaching is perceived, including by the teacher and many of us whether as students or teachers will be familiar with this phenomenon. What is missing of course is an acceptance that students learn at their own pace with the potential they have for understanding and the teacher s failure to recognise or acknowledge this may result in a transitory form of learning. By contrast, the acquisition of knowledge that is retained much longer will require teaching students at the level of their capacities to understand. It can happen nevertheless that inspirational teachers by raising the standard to such a level of excellence may inspire those who learn to aim higher and, at least in some instances, manage to achieve it. Wittgenstein s feelings of uncertainty about his success as a teacher and as a philosopher lecturer always remained and this can happen to any teacher, including the best. Like learning, teaching is a work in progress never to be completed while pedagogical demands remain. In Wittgenstein s case, he often struggled to learn and teach and this became understandably more difficult as he got older not just because of intellectual exhaustion from a lifetime of intense thinking but also by the limits imposed on him by his frequent state of ill-health. It is notable however that despite these adverse factors, he continued to think as intensely as he could into his final years and record his thoughts and observations in such classic studies of perception and epistemology that were written in the last years of his life, posthumously published as Remarks On Colour and On Certainty.