Abstract
One of the things most important in the tradition of Wittgenstein-inspired moral philosophy is its emphasis on working with examples. This essay is an attempt to do just that. The example will be two scenes from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Martha (1974). The task is to listen to the people talking in the scenes and to try to understand what they mean. This requires listening also to what they do not say, to what they struggle to say but do not succeed in expressing. Above all, it involves trying to understand where the difficulties lie. Against the background of such a discussion, questions about the possibility and nature of moral philosophy are raised, with reference to some of the central points made by Wittgenstein in his later philosophy. The basic phenomenon is not words meaning this and that but people meaning this and that, and meaning it to one another. For what is hard is not to utter certain words or sentences, but to utter them meaning what you are saying, and understanding what someone is saying is then not a fundamentally different thing from understanding her.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
My translation. I have tried to retain all “unnecessary” words, cases of unusual word order, etc., which means that the translation is not very elegant. But for the purpose of the philosophical discussion I would like to pursue here, these features are not inessential.
- 3.
This is something I will come back to in the last section of the essay.
- 4.
Cf. Buber 1953, 330–331.
- 5.
Cf. McElhaney 2012, 212, 215–216.
- 6.
- 7.
See Augustine 1992, 1.8.13.
- 8.
See, however, Augustine 1992, 1.6.8.
- 9.
Augustine might make a similar point by saying that every human word depends on, and is a response to, the Word of God.
- 10.
Here one could add that the very identification of something as a sign already points to the possibility of its being alive. Cf. Conant 2020.
- 11.
This question sounds more natural in German than it does in English, but I have opted for a literal translation rather than a smooth one.
- 12.
- 13.
This interpretation can be strengthened by reference to the previous scenes in the film in which Marianne takes part.
- 14.
It is however significant that Martha goes to see Mr. Kaiser in a later scene in the film.
- 15.
One could even claim that with the attitude that the future is just more of the same, no conversation would be possible at all, for there would then be no point in listening to the other, as I am able to predict what she will tell me.
- 16.
An example perhaps closer to home: think of how quickly students, after the initial shock, often get used to and adopt the spiteful tone of seminar discussions, having now learnt what it means to be a philosopher.
- 17.
- 18.
This publication was supported within the project of Operational Programme Research, Development and Education (OP VVV/OP RDE), “Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value”, registration No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000425, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic.
Thanks to Salla Aldrin Salskov, Christopher Cordner and Lars Hertzberg for comments on a previous version of this essay. I have also presented a previous version of it at the research seminar at the Centre for Ethics, University of Pardubice; thanks to those who participated in the discussion.
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Strandberg, H. (2022). On the Difficulty of Speaking. In: Aldrin Salskov, S., Beran, O., Hämäläinen, N. (eds) Ethical Inquiries after Wittgenstein. Nordic Wittgenstein Studies, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98084-9_5
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