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Jews as a Metaphysical Species

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Yuval Lurie
Yuval Lurie
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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Extract

There are certain remarks in Culture and Value in which Wittgenstein writes about Jews and about what he describes as their ‘Jewish mind’. In these remarks he appears to be trying to make a distinction between two different spiritual forces which operate in Western culture and which give rise to two different types of artists and works of art. On one side of the divide are Jews and works of art imbued with Jewish spirit. On the other side are men of culture and works of art which exhibit a non-Jewish spirit. Among the various remarks made in this context, he offers the following thoughts about the spiritual nature of Jews, their mentality, character and artistic achievements:

‘You get tragedy when a tree, instead of bending, breaks. Tragedy is something un-Jewish’ (1). Following Renan he writes: ‘The Semitic races have an unpoetic mentality, which heads straight for what is concrete’ (6). This, he explains, is because Jews are attracted by ‘pure intellectualism’. ‘I think it would be possible now to have a form of theatre played in masks. The characters would simply be stylized human types.’ (In his opinion this suits Karl Kraus's plays and their abstract nature.) ‘Masked theatre is anyway the expression of an intellectualistic character. And for the same reason perhaps it is a theatrical form that will attract only Jews’ (12). ‘The Jew is a desert region, but underneath its thin layer of rock lies the molten lava of spirit and intellect’ (13). ‘It is typical for a Jewish mind to understand somebody else's work better than that person understands it himself.’ But intellect, it seems, is not a mental attribute providing for genius and true creative powers. ‘Amongst Jews “genius” is found only in the holy man. Even the greatest of Jewish thinkers is no more than talented. (Myself, for instance.) … It might be said (rightly or wrongly) that the Jewish mind does not have the power to produce even the tiniest flower or blade of grass; its way is rather to make a drawing of the flower or blade of grass which has grown in the soil of another's mind and to put it into a comprehensive picture. We aren't pointing to a fault when we say this and everything is all right as long as what is being done is quite clear. It is only when the nature of a Jewish work is confused with that of a non-Jewish work that there is any danger, especially when the author of the Jewish work falls into the confusion himself, as he so easily may. (Doesn't he look as proud as though he had produced the milk himself?)’ (18–19).

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 64 , Issue 249 , July 1989 , pp. 323 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1989

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References

1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, von Wright, G. H. (ed.), trans, by Winch, Peter (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980).Google Scholar

2 In English, see Spengler, Oswald, The Decline of the West (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1961).Google Scholar

3 In English, see Weininger, Otto, Sex and Character (London: William Heinemann, 1910).Google Scholar

4 This contrasting of intellect and character has its parallel in Philosophical Investigations, in the contrasting of opinion and attitude. The first is made in the context of culture and pertains to spirit. The second is made in the context of epistemology and pertains to mind.

5 Regarding this complex subject, see Berlin, Isaiah, Vico and Herder (London: Hogarth Press, 1975)Google Scholar, also Against The Current (Oxford University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

6 The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, Schilpp, P. A. (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 1963), 26.Google Scholar

7 I do not believe Wittgenstein knew about the (still continuing) Jewish effort in Israel to invent new Hebrew words. I suppose he would have seen it as a demonstration of the Jews' intellectual path in culture.

8 Perhaps there are additional remarks on Jews in his legacy that were not included in the book. Von Wright, who edited the book, maintained (orally) that those remarks in the book concerning Jews constitute all that he found.

9 Malcolm, Norman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Memoir (Oxford University Press, 1984), 30.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 94.

11 Pascal, Pania, ‘Wittgenstein: A Personal Memoir’, in Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections, Rhees, Rush (ed.) (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981).Google Scholar

12 I wish to thank the Rabb Centre for Holocaust and Redemption Studies for its support. I have spoken on various aspects of this article before members of the Department of Philosophy at Ben-Gurion University, at the University of Tel-Aviv and at St John's College, Cambridge. I wish to thank all those concerned for their comments. These issues, particularly Weininger's influence on Wittgenstein's attitude toward Jews, are further elaborated in an article of mine, ‘Jews as a Parable’ (in Hebrew) in lyyun.