The enigma of distance

Abstract

[Extract] The pianist in Wittgenstein (1974, 6.51-7) put it well: 'the most important things in life lie beyond words.' So let us begin by throwing away the ladder of language that we are used to standing on.

Wittgenstein's other life - as an architect, engineer, and musician - conditioned him to do what philosophers often do not bother to do: take seriously what is not put into words, or what lies beneath words. Wittgenstein struggled for a way of understanding the silent shape of things. Things that cannot be put into words, he observed, manifest themselves. Wittgenstein called this process 'mystical' (6.522). There is a long tradition of thinking mystically about those things that we cannot put into words. There is also another, and equally strong, tradition of thinking about such things. This is to render them in geometric, musical, and architectural forms. There is no obligation on us to choose between these ways of thinking. Indeed, at certain times, these traditions have cut across each other.