Wittgenstein and the Demystification of Art and Art Rituals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/diakrisis.2025.7Keywords:
Wittgenstein’s Theology, Aristotle, Philosophy of Science, Culture, AestheticsAbstract
The criteria of Wittgenstein’s theories on demystification through art and rituals are inexact; in the realm where the Form of the Good dwells it is impossible to even dimly see and testify to the logical clarification of thought (catharsis). The reason for this impossibility is that catharsis is a biological procedure; which means that it concerns solely the physical, not the mental. Expanding further this idea as regards the use of language that implements catharsis, Wittgenstein maintains that communication signs alone play no part (hence neither do apprehension nor sense impressions) in a language which is disconnected from patterns of relationship that explain life and reality. To pay attention to these signs is to understand merely what happens – not what really is. To transmit them means to apprehend only their patterns – not what lies behind these patterns. And that was exactly, following Aristotle, what the initiates of the rituals as regards the form of the Good, were dedicated to. Their aim was not to grasp the Truth but to experience it through passion, thus putting themselves in a condition to dedicate themselves to its realisation. Plato, on the other, thought these rituals were qualified by sophistry. This process does function, however, not only cathartically at the level of thought, but also therapeutically, as healing the evils of times and physical evils and passions. Aeschylus’ lesson: that learning is brought about through passion solely, clearly foreshadows Wittgenstein’s demystifying ideas on the healing functions of parallel learning procedures.
References
Aeschylus. Oresteia; Agamemnon. Ed. W. Stanford. Trans. R. Fagles. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics; Poetics; Fragments. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2. Ed. J. Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Burke, T.E. The Philosophy of Popper. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983.
Burke, T.E. “Science as Conjecture and Refutation.” In An Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Ed. G.H.R. Parkinson, T.E. Burke, J.G. Cottingham, M.A. Proudfoot, J.E. Tiles, 205-224. London: Routledge, 1988.
Burke, T.E. Questions of Belief. Hants: Avebury, 1995.
Burke, T.E. The Philosophy of Whitehead. London: Greenwich Exchange, 2000.
Charles, D. Aristotle on Meaning and Essence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.
Cottingham, J. Rationalism. London: Paladin Movements and Ideas, 1984.
Giannaras, Chr. Τα καθ’εαυτόν. Athens: Ikaros, 2005.
Giouli, V. M. The Philosophy of Punishment, in Greek. Athens-Komotini: Anth. N. Sakkoulas, 2003.
Giouli, V. M. The Taming of Power: A Christian Critique of Theories of Historical Development. Sponsored by Alpha Bank with a Preface by E. Moutsopoulos. Athens: Publications of The Hellenic Society for 449 Philosophical Studies, 2012.
Giouli, V. M. How is Social Science Possible? An Aristotelian Critique of Normativity in Sociological Methodology. Sponsored by Dimitris Daskalopoulos. Athens: Livanis, 2012.
Giouli, V. M. “Relativity of Freedom in Plato’s Republic.” Quaestio 19 (2019): 327–340. In 453 https://doi.org/10.1484/J.QUAESTIO.5.120259
Giouli, V. M. “The True Objects of Knowledge in Plato and Wittgenstein.” Episteme 12 (2021): 43–59.
Giouli, V. M. The Imaginary in Vizyenos’ Philosophy, Ancient and Modern Components, in Greek. Athens: Govostis, 2022.
Giouli, V. M. “Aristotle’s Non-realistic Account of the World.” Chôra χώρα • REAM, 20 (2022): 267–458 290. In https://doi.org/10.5840/chora20222014
Giouli, V. M. “Is Aristotle’s Psychology Wittgenstein’s?” Episteme 13 (2022): 37–79.
Giouli, V.M. The Phenomenological Intuition of Space as the Nurturer (τιθήνη) of History and Global Crisis. Series Cultural Studies in the Third Millennium; World Philosophy. Hauppauge NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2024. In https:
//doi.org/10.52305/QNBB8076
Hintikka, M. B. & Hintikka J. Investigating Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
Hacker, P.M.S. Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy. London: Blackwell, 1996.
Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740). Ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
Moutsopoulos, E. “The Transtructuration of Myth in Ancient Greek Tragedy,” in French. Φιλοσοφία 29 (1999): 205–209.
Moutsopoulos, E. Aesthetics of Morals, in Greek. Athens: Academy of Athens, Centre for Research on Greek Philosophy, 2009.
Moutsopoulos, E. The Problem of the Imaginary in Plotinus, in French. Athens: Academy of Athens, Centre for Research on Greek Philosophy, 2011.
Moutsopoulos, E. “Unveiling the Mysterious,” in French. In Actions and Valences, 44–45. Athens: Academy of Athens, Centre for Research on Greek Philosophy, 2012.
Notomi, N. The Unity of Plato’s Sophist: Between the Sophist and the Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 (Cambridge Classical Studies).
Nussbaum, M. C. The fragility of goodness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Plato. Euthydemus. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. In https://Gutenberg. Org.
Plotinus. Enneads. Ed. Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer (1951–1973). In Plotini Opera, 3 volumes. Paris-Bruxelles.
Sakellarakis, J. Introduction to the Ancient Greek Religion, in Greek. Herakleion Municipality: Vikelaia Library, 1995.
Sakellarakis, J. Digging for the Past, in Greek. Athens: Ammos, 1995.
Toynbee, A. J. A Study of History, I-XII, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935.
Yourcenar, M. Memoirs of Hadrian, in French. Paris: Gallimard, 1974.
Wittgenstein, L. (PI 1953) Philosophical Investigations. Ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. (TLP 1961) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. Preface B. Russell (International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Wittgenstein, L. (LA 1966) Lectures and Conversations. Ed. Cyril Barrett. Oxford: Basil Blackwell [English LA 1968].
Wittgenstein, L. (Z 1967) Zettel. Ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. (VB 1980) Culture and Value. Ed. G. H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman. Trans. Peter Winch. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Virginia Giouli (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
