Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Lecture on Ethics, delivered in November 1929 to the Heretics Society at Cambridge University, is a problematic provocation with a cynical and pessimistic flair.
Wittgenstein begins his
lecture by giving an explanation for Ethics as “the general inquiry into what
is good”, however, neglects to explain what “good” actually is, perhaps,
because he will soon go on to discredit the word “good” with a few examples. But
first, he seeks to offer more clarity on the matter of Ethics through a series
of synonyms, which he compares to the composite portraiture of Sir Francis
Galton, who in the 1880s used photographic superimposition of two or more faces
by multiple exposures to create composites, which he presented as human ideal
types and concepts. Galton considered his technique to investigate common types
of humanity an extension of the statistical techniques of averages and
correlation.[1]
Wittgenstein talks about
showing his audience a Galtonesque collective photo to make them see “a typical
Chinese face” as a simile for his attempt to give them “a rough idea as to what
it is that Ethics is concerned with” by listing several possible definitions. Whether
he succeeded in giving the Heretics Society such an idea, we will never know.
Nonetheless, his proposition suffers from a problematic undercurrent. To even
speak of “a typical Chinese face” is sheer ignorance, at best, given the
vastness and diversity of the Chinese population, not to mention its culture,
with fabulous philosophies, and languages in the several hundred. Between 1850
and 1931 the Chinese population grew from an estimated 436,100,000 million to
474,780,000 million![2]
The only typical face is the human one, millions of times over, and this one
varies in great detail. Unfortunately, the attempt by certain movements to
typify select portions of humanity has never had good consequences, instead, underlining
the unethical streaks of human hubris[3].
Seriously, what can a 19th-century British technique reveal about
the realities of humanity across the globe? To superimpose various images of
real faces in order to create some abstract ideal, is to erase the human right
to be an idiosyncratic individual variety of the vast human collective. Erasure
is unethical and leads nowhere good. Galton’s 19th-century Britain
also brought forth the eugenics movement, which spread to most European
countries, like Germany, but also to the United States, Canada and Australia. The
word “eugenics” comes from the Greek composition “eu – good, well” and “genes –
born, come into being, growing/grown.” On the surface it can mean good genes or
born well, but this name was deceiving, for the eugenics movement were a set of
cruel and murderous beliefs and practices that aimed to improve the genetic
quality of a particular human population.[4]
The kind of misguided and unethical movement that went hand in hand with racism
and the antisemitism that fueled the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Little
did Wittgenstein know in 1929, that the worst was yet to come, in the form of
death camps and a Second World War killing and causing inconceivable suffering
for many millions of humans across the world.
Of course, Ethics doesn’t
claim to actually know what is good but merely to inquire into what might be. That’s
why it is of utmost importance to carefully review the terms on which the
inquiry is made. Wittgenstein settles on the following notions about ethical
inquiry:
- what is good
- what is valuable
- what is really important
- on the meaning of life
- what makes life worth living
Thus, what might a “rough
idea”, as he proposes we imagine, look like? Because we already encounter a
very rough and problematic road to imagining what’s genuinely good or valuable
or important or meaningful, with the loose guidance Ludwig bestows upon his
interlocutors, a group of, probably gentlemen – though the Heretics Society was
open to women. Jane Ellen Harrison, a British scholar, linguist and England’s
first paid woman career academic, found an audience at the Society. Doctor
Harrison is one of the three founders of modern studies in Ancient Greek
religion and mythology, and her methods of applying 19th-century archeological
discoveries to the interpretation of ancient Greek religion have become
standard today.[5] On
Decemeber 7th, 1909, she gave an inaugural talk at the Heretics
Society, which was published in 1911 as the essay Heresy and Humanity, “an
argument that warned of the dangers of group-think and implored the audience to
realize that we are constantly negotiating the line between egotism and herd
instinct, but that how we navigate that line matters.”[6]
On May 18th, 1924, influential modernist English writer Virginia Wolf
used the Heretics forum to reply criticism of her novel Jacob by the writer
Arnold Bennett. Her much-cited phase addressing the arrival of modernism “on or
about December 1910, human character changed” has gone down in history. She was
referring to English painter and critic Roger Fry’s exhibition Manet and the
Post-Impressionists and argued, through the examination of two generations
of writers, that as times change, writers and the tools they use must evolve as
“the tools of one generation are useless to the next”.[7]
Wolf viewed modernism as an inherently unstable society and culture in flux. Overall,
the Heretics Society appears to have been characterized by nonconformism and the
exposition of novel ideas.
So, what were the gentle souls
like in the auditorium of the Heretics Society in 1929, when Ludwig
Wittgenstein stepped up to the podium? What would they have imagined as good? A
humanity characterized by abstraction, whereby the conception of a typical face
was viewed as valuable? Or a humanity where various points of view are really
important and diversity gives meaning to life? Unfortunately, it is not clear
what rough idea Ethics has for Wittgenstein.
My own rough idea of what is
good, valuable, important and makes life worth living goes something like this:
Ethical is what takes variety
and idiosyncrasy into account in a way that guides and serves the common
wellbeing of not only humanity but also planetary life at large. Ethical is
what makes life worth living through inclusion, justice and equal opportunities
to pursue health, wealth, happiness, equanimity and liberation from suffering
for living creatures alike. Ethical is what gives all humans the right to shelter,
water, food, hygiene, healthcare, education and protection from injury and
disaster. Ethical is what enables individuals to come together as communities
and express their creativity freely. A meaningful life is possible when the
basic necessities of survival are accounted for all and the means for thriving
available to all.
Perhaps, Wittgenstein is
unspecific to make his provocative claim on linguistic doom. That “we cannot
express what we want to express and that all we can say about the absolute
miraculous remains nonsense.” A philosophical punch line to appeal to an
audience who is into nonconformism. Why offer clear definitions and ideas? The
Heretic Society was founded on the questioning of traditional authorities in
general and religious dogmas in particular.[8]
To hear the absolute miraculous be dismissed as nonsense may have tickled the
anti-dogmatic fancy of the Society more than presentation of genuine wisdom
with clear guidance, often misread as traditional authority, as opposed to
being understood as timeless truths enabling the surviving and thriving of
humanity for millions of years. Could Ludwig imagine that tickling the heretics
would result in a paper considered Western philosophical canon? Or did his joke
of the moment merely blow their minds like a cannon?
Wittgenstein resorts to
negative definitions, like guilt, and weak measures, like pleasure, to continue
exploring the relative notion of the absolute good, that is Ethics. He also
employs strong measures for good, such as awe, appreciation and safety. But he
uses them to prove what can’t be imagined. For example, he claims that “it is
nonsense to say that I wonder at the existence of the world, because I cannot
imagine it not existing.” This is kind of a silly assessment, because you can
naturally wonder about the world not being around. As the old Indian sage Markandeya
did, who “had a vision about how the world would come to an end. Just as human
beings die, the world also experiences death. This is called Pralaya, when all
the mountains, forests, lands and rivers get under the sea, where they dissolve
into the waters. This frightening sight where even the stars and the planets
are consumed by the sea was witnessed by Markaya.”[9]
The story of Markaya’s
envisioned doom underlies the yoga position known as Child’s Pose or, in
Sanskrit, Balasana. Because the sage Markandeya, who indeed imagined the world
not existing, also visualized “a banyan leaf, cradled by the waves of the
waters of doom. On this banyan leaf was a child, a baby sucking its toe. […]
Markandeya was reassured that what he had seen as the terrifying end of the
world was just an event in the lifecycle of the cosmos. Death would be followed
by rebirth, not only for all living creatures, but the world itself. The
gurgling happy child represented how the divine considers even the greatest of
catastrophes and calamities as just one event in the infinite flow of events
that take place in the universe.”[10]
Asanas, or positions, are not
only ancient, but they represent basic Yoga canon, philosophical guidelines for
good living, physical Ethics, if you will. An ancient Indian sage, exponent of
visions, inspired a very accessible solution for dealing with doom – which
results from the inevitable conclusion that the world, too, will cease to exist
– in the form of a simple pose. Balasana is a calming position available to
anyone, anytime, anywhere and is conducive to individual and collective
well-being, health, equanimity, happiness and creativity. Child’s Pose, amongst
many others, is a concrete and clear expression of Ethics that all humans can
employ.
Just kneel on the ground with
your knees together or spread apart. Then, drape your torso over your thighs or
let it settle between them. Allow your head to hang loosely resting on the
ground. Place your arms stretched out in front of you on the ground or next to
along the sides of your body. With every inhalation feel your torso expand and
lift you gently. With every exhalation feel yourself drop deeper into the calm
of the ground beneath your body. Breath on, in and out, always aware of the
breath moving through your body until you feel yourself let go into calmness of
a grounded space.
The yogic child position captures
Ethics beyond language, as it offers a way for the well-being of everyone, a
strategy for and expression of goodness in terms of health, happiness,
equanimity and calm. Yoga positions, or asanas, capture Ethics in a very
physical and complete way that transcends words. And yet, each position also
has a name. For a yoga practitioner “Balasana” can mean an absolute miraculous
kind of calm.
But maybe it would have been
too much to ask of a group of post-World-War-One Europeans, embedded in a Great
Depression and surrounded by the rise of fascism, to imagine the non-existence
of the world. In this context, Wittgenstein’s provocative cynicism, maybe makes
sense, when he states that: “To be safe essentially means that it is physically
impossible that certain things should happen to me and therefore it is nonsense
to say that I am safe whatever happens.” In truth, Europeans were not safe. For,
fascism and another war were about to erupt and destroy millions of lives.
And Wittgenstein insists on
the notion of nonsense throughout his lecture. He considers it nonsense to say
that experiences and facts have absolute value. “It is the paradox that an
experience, a fact, should seem to have supernatural value,” he states. But
experiences can, in fact, even as expressed in words, give insight into
phenomena that transcend them, insight into what lies beyond.
Still, Wittgenstein considers what’s
miraculous to be irreconcilable with science. “The truth is that the scientific
way of looking at a fact is not the way you look at it as a miracle,” he
states. But this must not be the case.
We could understand what
Wittgenstein considers as “miraculous” to be that which lies beyond facts and
experiences, which science is devoted to capturing in structured and systematic
ways, rendering miracles beyond the capture of science, even though these can
be experienced on a different level, one out of the reach of language according
to Wittgenstein. Indeed, another approach is possible to the reconciliation
between science and that which may lie beyond, as explored by the Western yogi,
mediator and author Michael Singer in his book The Untetheres Soul – The
Journey Beyond Yourself (2007). Singer considers spirituality to be “the
commitment to go beyond, no matter what it takes”, essentially the pursuit of
the miraculous in the absolute sense, to use Wittgenstein’s language.
“The foundations of spiritual
growth and personal awakening are very much strengthened by the findings of
Western science. Science has shown us how an underlying energy field forms into
atoms, which then bind together into molecules, and ultimately manifest into
the entire physical universe. The same is true inside of us. All that goes on
inside also has its foundation in an underlying energy field. It is the
movements in this field that create our mental and emotional patterns as well
as our inner drives, urges, and instinctual reactions. Regardless of what you
call this inner force field – Chi[11],
Shakti[12],
or Spirit – it is an underlying energy that flows in particular patterns
through your inner being.”[13]
Thus, science can strengthen
spiritual experiences, or that which is miraculous. Science is a form of
language. And Wittgenstein does consider that words gain meaning through their
use within forms of life, and that language has a fluid, social character.[14]
It follows that, precisely because language has a fluid and social character,
and words gain meaning through their use within forms of life, that the most
important aspects of life give language its descriptive capacity, expanding it
rather than being limited by it. Thus, rendering language, a significant tool
of Ethics. Language feeds on everyday life, fixed definitions and abstract
correspondence to reflect an interlocutor’s intentions. Not language limits
life, but speakers do. Sadly, Wittgenstein appears to limit language by
rendering it absolutely useless and nonsensical.
Even more sadly, science, too,
is but an expression of humanity and subject to its ingenuity, inspiration and
impulsivity. Perhaps, Wittgenstein was wary of human expression and sought to
pull people off their high horse by questioning the most fundamental aspects of
human interaction: ethics and language. What is meaningful in a world full of
nonsense, indeed?
The late 19th
century didn’t only give rise to the Heretic Society that gave the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein a platform for his rough ideas. The father of nuclear
chemistry, Otto Hahn, was born on March 8th, 1879, and lived to
witness the abhorrent consequences of his extensive research. He discovered
nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, with
the support of woman nuclear physicist Lise Meitner (1878-1968) and others. In
the early 1920s, Hahn created the new line of research known as “applied
radiochemistry” taken up all over the world. The United States detonated two
atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasake during the
final days of World War Two on the 6th and 9th of August,
1945, killing up to 246,000 civilians. This represented the first and only uses
of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. The war in Europe had ceased on May 8th
with Germany’s surrender. Hanh and other scientists, almost all of whom had
worked on the German nuclear weapons program, had been put under arrest on
April 25th by an armored British-American task force. They were
informed of the atomic bombings in Japan in captivity and were shocked that the
Allies were more advanced than them. Hahn noted that he was glad they had not
succeeded, but the German nuclear scientist drafted a memorandum that made sure
it was known who had discovered nuclear fission to begin with. Hahn received
the 1944 Nobel Peace Prize in Chemistry “for his discovery of the fission of
heavy atomic nuclei” and found out about it via the Daily Telegraph on
November 18th, 1945.
Back in 1909 at the Heretic
Society, Jane Ellen Harrison had implored the audience to realize that we are
constantly negotiating the line between egotism and herd instinct and that how
we navigate that line matters. But the German nuclear scientists still
satisfied their thirst for recognition and an egotistical Otto Hahn cashed in
on the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the abominable destruction and devastation he
had fathered. But the instinct for survival of the German scientists was
stronger than any ethical considerations, and they went on to use the pseudo-apologetic
narrative that Germany lost the war because of the moral superiority of its
scientists to secure the survival of German academe.
“[I]t is not difficult to see
that the most primal energy flow is the survival instinct,” Michael Singer
writes at the turn of the twenty-first century. “During eons of evolution, from
the simplest of living forms to the most complex, there has always been the
day-to-day struggle to protect oneself.”[15]
When considering the unethical
story of nuclear science, one that led to unimaginable suffering,
Wittgenstein’s observations are plausible. Language can be deceiving. A peace
prize for war crimes? Does it get more unethical than that? While truths can
seek expression in language, however, they only have meaning if expressed in
lived experience as well. Thus, knowledge is stored and taught in order to recreate
meaningful human experiences and to avoid repeating unethical mistakes.
Language plays an important
part in carrying human experience forward and philosophy finds meaning in
abstractions capable of transcending mundane misgivings. Both definitions and daily
use determine meaningful language. Words are shaped by circumstance, but
meaning, embedded in words, also shapes activities, contexts and life itself.
One sentence alone can capture meaningfulness that transcends a given time,
space and activity, or a contextual interpretation thereof. For example, the
isolated sentence “Death is part of life.” encompasses a larger existential
context, that embraces countless mundane situations faced by creatures beyond
humans themselves.
While it is true that there is
no single universal rulebook for language, we must acknowledge that underlying
structures exist and must be taken into consideration. Both in a courtroom and
at a family dinner, phenomena like power dynamics and social stratification can
play a role. Racism and other isms can show up similarly in various contexts,
as can justice, empathy and love.
What makes language possible
in the first place, is an interesting question. Language works because it is an
expression of human experience. Words are robes for meaning. The greatest
challenge is to capture meaning beyond it’s many cloaks, the art of language is
to reflect meaning in the nude. Thus, it would have been more appropriate to
award Otto Hahn the Nobel War Prize in recognition of the destructive extent of
his impactful scientific work. Of course, such a prize is nothing to celebrate.
Such suffering is too big a prize to pay for human games of nonsense, such as
making weapons with no other purpose but to kill and cause harm. Does it get
more unethical than that?
Meaning is both something we
participate in together and something we can privately construct in isolation. Otto
Hahn constructed the meaning surrounding his nuclear discovery privately, while
writing his memoirs in captivity and subsequently found support in his fellow
scientists, ultimately going down in history as the father of nuclear science,
regardless of his role in the terrors of World War Two.
So, how does language actually
work? Language works in tandem with meaning. And meaning is rooted in life. If
language appears mysterious and paradoxical when abstracted from ordinary use,
it’s because life itself can appear mysterious and paradoxical. Philosophical
problems arise because unethical situations challenge the mind’s love for
wisdom. Zero wisdom lies in the creation of weapons. Warring is driven by
pathology and fear. Philosophical problems arise when the weakest and most
afflicted aspects of humanity seem to drive society into insanity to the point
that language itself appears as nonsense. But words have functions that
transcend ordinary speech. And languages are designed to dance with meaning to
reflect life and stop at nothing. Thus, languages abound with great diversity,
creativity and variety.
For Wittgenstein, what matters
most is not something we can neatly define, but something we can only gesture
toward in action, attitude and lived experience. And yet, we must seek to
define ethics in a way that is meaningful to following generations. A national
or multi-national constitution, for example, must reflect clear guidelines for
the actions, attitudes and lived experiences of the people it seeks to embody
in a way that is conducive to a collective well-being while honoring individual
idiosyncrasies. It is irresponsible to claim that definitions don’t matter,
because they very much do as they transcend individual experiences and carry on
meaning for living for hundreds and thousands of years. More importantly, we
must seek our definitions carefully to elicit meaningful lives for generations
to come. We must seek ethical lives that are free of destruction, war, hunger,
suffering, deceit and senseless strife.
As logic exists outside of
language, so do other phenomena. Patterns are expressed in the structures of
life and language seeks to recreate these patterns. Mathematics and physics are
examples of language varieties that seek to express the patterns humans observe
in the universe and to make human creation and manipulation possible. Ethics
must be a wise guide for human creativity and manipulation. Ethics must teach
humans to enable individual and collective well-being instead of war and
destruction. And there are many ways to describe meaning. Language can be
expressed beyond words through art, as well.
There is no humanity without
expression and sharing. Thus, Wittgenstein’s proposition that what cannot be spoken
of must be passed over in silence is problematic in the context of both wisdom
and injustice. Wisdom needs to be shared to protect well-being. And mistakes
cannot remain unnamed for justice to prevail. It may be true, that not
everything important can be captured in theoretical terms, but, perhaps, it must
for the sake of wisdom and education. Everything is significant for the human
creature as exhibited by their tireless attempts to express it through language
and art. Meaning that is embedded in lived practice is felt, but meaning
embedded in language can transcend the one and become knowledge and life for
many. This is the undeniable responsibility of ethics, the inquiry into what is
good, important and valuable. As we define the meaning of life for humanity,
will determine how we live.
Indeed, any aspect of human
experience, whether mystical or mundane, can remain unexpressed. Plenty of
day-to-day experiences go largely unarticulated, like going to the bathroom,
eating, taking care of the body, et cetera. Repetitive mundane experiences go
unarticulated far more than mystical ones. Speculatively, in terms of quantity
due to the sheer amount of experiences required to through life on a day-to-day
basis. But, sadly, in Western culture also in qualitative terms. How many of us
habitually meditate, pray, light fires, engage in daily rituals, chants or
other spiritual practices, like venerating a deity or engaging reverently with
nature or the universe, like kissing the earth or staring up at the sky? Plenty
of practices died as they got waved off as pagan by religion. Can they be
revived? We have language to thank for holding on to ancient traditions! But
how many monks, nuns, renunciates and devotees actually spend more time in
mystical experiencing than taking dutiful care of the daily demands of
terrestrial mortal life?
What is the absolute sense of
the term miraculous? Wittgenstein doesn’t say. Perhaps, “absolute” is but an
exaggeration, while “ethical” is a useful aspiration.
If “all we can say about the
absolute miraculous remains nonsense,” is all Wittgenstein can say about the
“absolute miraculous”, then it is nonsense. Is to qualify certain experiences,
such as the existence of the world and language, as absolute miracles too
ambitious? Can we agree that life is miraculous and that this word is
indication enough? “Miraculous” expresses how marvelous life is and invites us
to experience the awe, reverence, humility, gratitude, appreciation and sheer
joy the realization of life’s miraculous existence evokes.
Perhaps, Wittgenstein simply
remained too scarce in his use of language, while synonyms and literary
techniques abound to capture the value and importance humans express through
language, of the miraculous life and fascinating world they’re a part of.
Perhaps, the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion
was to run against the boundaries of their own minds. But would it have been
too offensive to tell this to the men of the Heretics Society to their face? That
their minds are bound. Language can be used as a scapegoat, too.
I’m left to wonder, was
Wittgenstein a sage provocateur or a disillusioned cynic?
The closing statement of his
lecture sounds bleak. “This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly,
absolutely hopeless, Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say
something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute
valuable, can be no science.” Yes, science fails humanity every day that it
produces weapons of mass destruction, which are neither good nor valuable nor
meaningful for life. “What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense.
But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot
help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.” Which he does.
Wittgenstein not only ridicules science but also the human mind, and rightfully
so, we’ve seen what atrocities it is capable of. But at the same time, only if
we can transcend our afflictions through genuine ethics, characterized by the
respect for the miracle of living, do we stand a chance to call ourselves good
philosophers and human beings, who seek well-being for all and the common good
for generations to come.
Switzerland, May 2nd, 2026
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_portrait
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_China
[3]
hubris – exaggerated pride or self-confidence; arrogance (www.merriam-webster.com)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Ellen_Harrison
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kay_Ogden
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Bennett_and_Mrs._Brown
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kay_Ogden
[9] Devdutt Pattanaik with Matthew Rulli.
Yoga Mythology – 64 Asanas and Their Stories. 2019. HarperCollins Publishers,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. p.255
[10] Ibidem, pp. 255-256
[11] Vital force in traditional Chinese
philosophy.
[12] The Universal Power that underlies
and sustains all existence in Hinduism.
[13] Michael A. Singer. The Untethered Soul
– The Journey Beyond Yourself. New Harbinger Publications, Inc., Oakland, CA.
p. 59
[14] Christopher Bray. Philosophy
Club Notes – Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Language. Sandy Library,
April 18th, 2026.
[15] Michael A. Singer. The Untethered
Soul – The Journey Beyond Yourself. New Harbinger Publications, Inc., Oakland,
CA. p. 59
