While we were reading Derrida’s Spurs (where, incidentally, Derrida briefly seems to take Wittgenstein’s private language argument as obviously correct), Chris pointed out a sort of theme that comes up in both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Is there something to make of this? Some connection that could help us make sense of the world? Some deep rift between the analytic and continental traditions finally, and here, smoothed over? Probably not. But maybe, some German Sprichwort about old women who misplace or hide objects and then doubt their reality?
Nietzsche (quoted from Spurs):
I fear that women who have grown old are more sceptical in the secret recesses of their hearts than any of the men; they believe in the superficiality of existence as in its essence, and all virtue and profundity is to them only the disguising of this ‘truth’, the very desirable disguising of a pudendum – an affair, therefore, of decency and modesty, and nothing more!
Wittgenstein (from On Certainty):
I do philosophy now like an old woman who is always mislaying something and having to look for it again: now her spectacles, now her keys.
But then again, how does Wittgenstein do philosophy? Does he believe in “the superficiality of existence as in its essence”? That “truth” is “an affair … of decency and modesty, and nothing more”? My first stab is no, he doesn’t even commit to that. But if we step away from ‘truth’ and toward ‘essence’, then maybe Wittgenstein does have something in common with Nietzsche’s old lady.
The beginning of Wittgenstein’s critique of essences, from Philosophical Investigations:
‘The essence is hidden from us’: this is the form our problem now assumes. We ask: ‘What is language?’, ‘What is a proposition?’ And the answer to these questions is to be given once and for all, and independently of any future experience.
Finally, while surely this is one step too far, here’s Kharms again:
One old woman, due to her immoderate curiosity, tumbled out of a window and fell, killed in the collision.
So the pieces are: old ladies are skeptics, Wittgenstein does philosophy like an old lady, and curiosity killed the old lady.
“1. to break; be broken; be smashed
“2. to break up; split up
“3. (of a plane) to crash
“4. to be badly hurt.”
Although when first reading the story, I got the feeling these old ladies were dead, the dictionary gave me an iffy feeling about that initial response. Clearly, the old ladies weren’t planes crashing, so cross out #3. Kharms does some insane stuff with language, but were the old ladies really breaking or splitting up? Probably not; #2 can go, too. So here’s the dilemma: If the old ladies were smashed, they were probably dead. Otherwise, per Katzner, they were just badly hurt. If they’re badly hurt, a lot of the punch is taken out of the story. But if they’re smashed (the closest English equivalent I can think of to what would happen to an old lady who fell out of a window due to immoderate curiosity), how in the hell do I translate that? We don’t usually say in English “she was smashed” without inviting questions like “by what?” or “she smashed” without “into what?”, so using a verb like ‘to smash’ would require extra information not found in the original – something like “smashed/crashed into the ground”. And how do I convey the sense of “she died” without adding an extra item to the list of events?
I also can’t decide what to do with the blind man at the end. The natural English would be “a blind man”, or “a lone/single/whatever blind man” if you need to say that he’s not part of a group of blind men. Kharms, though, specifically says “одному слепому подарили вязаную шаль” – “one blind man was given a knitted scarf”. What’s he doing there? Starting a new list? Reflecting the series of old women, but this time as blind men? Just starting a new story? Anyway, I went with “a blind man” for now. Here’s my current stab, with a few more tweaks.
“One old woman, due to her immoderate curiosity, tumbled out of a window, and fell, killed in the collision.
“From the window another old woman leaned and began to look down at the wounded old woman but, due to immoderate curiosity, she also tumbled out of the window, and fell, killed in the collision.
“Then from the window tumbled a third old woman, and then a fourth, and then a fifth.
“When the sixth old woman tumbled out, I got tired of watching them, and I set off for Mal’tsevskij market where, they say, a blind man was given a knitted scarf.”
“Одна старуха от черезмерного любопытства вывалилась из окна, упала и разбилась.
“Из окна высунулась другая старуха и стала смотреть вниз на разбившуюся, но, от черезмерного любопытства, тоже вывалилась из окна, упала и разбилась.
“Потом из окна вывалилась третья старуха, потом четвёртая, потом пятая.
“Когда вывалилась шестая старуха, мне надоело смотреть на них, и я пошел на Мальцевский рынок, где, говорят, одному слепому подарили вязаную шаль.”
“One old woman, due to immoderate curiosity, tumbled out of a window, fell and was badly hurt.
“Out of the window another old woman leaned and began to look down at the wounded old woman but, due to immoderate curiosity, also tumbled out of the window, fell and was badly hurt.
“Then out of the window tumbled a third old woman, and then a fourth, and then a fifth.
“When the sixth old woman tumbled, I got tired of watching them, and I set off for Mal’tsevskij market where, they say, a lone blind man was given a knitted scarf.”
