Wittgenstein Page #3

I wanted to get my Tractatus published,

so I went back to Vienna.

(Dramatic piano music)

Ludwig!

Ludwig, what do you mean

you want to teach in a rural school?

It would be like a precision instrument

opening crates.

Look, you were decorated in the war.

Bertrand Russell

says you're the great philosophical hope.

You can't go and teach in the provinces.

Hermine, you remind me of someone

looking out through a closed window

who cannot explain the strange movements

of someone outside.

You can't tell what sort of storm is raging,

or that this person might only be managing

to stay on his feet with difficulty.

Well, I still think it's a waste of your talents.

If you hadn't been so daft

and given all your money to us,

you could publish your book yourself,

without having to bow and scrape to publishers.

I don't want to force my philosophy

on the world, if a publisher won't publish it.

Can't you understand that?

Well, I would rather have a happy person

for a brother than an unhappy saint.

I am going to teach.

CHILDREN:
? Three blind mice

"Those truth possibilities of its truth-argument

which verify... and prositions...

I shall call its truth grounds..."

Yes, good.

Proposition. So what is this here?

What do you call this here?

Logic.

What's this here?

What do you call this here?

Teaching you

is a... thoroughly... unrewarding experience.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Do you understand what I'm saying?

It's a waste of time.

It's a waste of my time,

your time, everybody's time.

Do you understand...

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Oh, my God!

Oh, my dear, dear God!

Teaching proved to be a sham.

I had to "do a runner"...

...and lie about my brutality towards the children.

They just weren't any good at logic or maths,

and they drove me crazy.

I kidded myself that my background and class

weren't important,

but I stood out like a sore thumb

at these provincial schools.

The parents hated me and called me strange.

I felt guilty for years.

Somehow I had failed.

Morally.

This is a red pillar box.

How do you know that?

I've done my homework.

Green is green.

Children learn by believing adults.

Doubt comes after belief.

I know what I believe.

Where I come from there are no adults,

and so no doubts.

If I post this letter to New York, does that

strengthen my conviction that the earth exists?

The earth does exist.

And so do Martians.

(Xylophone)

(Ticking)

Well, you end the book with the line,

"Whereof one cannot speak,

thereof one must remain silent."

Why didn't you?

I don't understand a word, Ludwig.

It's gobbledygook.

How much were you paid for this?

I was paid nothing for the rights,

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