Apropos of nothing

There is a pseudonymous article of this name, something over three pages of it, in the current number of the NYRB. It comes with some arty illustrations, of which one is reproduced above. I believe original prints might cost you a thousand dollars, although you have to sign up to get access to proper auction records, which I did not want to do.

An article which starts off by telling us that Bertrand Russell once had a semi-serious debate with Ludwig Wittgenstein about whether the statement 'There is no hippopotamus in the room at present' was meaningful or meaningless. Russell was for meaningful and Wittgenstein was for meaningless.

An article which seems to be mostly about a recent book about nothing by one Stephen Mumford of Durham. A book which includes close readings of the extant fragments of work by one Parmenides, born around 2,500 years ago.

A topic which has roughly the same attraction for me as dynamics of ranking processes in complex systems of reference 5. So not uninteresting, but does not make the cut. For the moment, I just jump to various associations.

Firstly, in my days of writing computer programs to check facts, I remember positive facts seeming much more tractable than negative facts. If you came across a blue elephant, you could be fairly sure that blue elephants existed. But if you failed to find a blue elephant, you were rather less sure that they did not exist. Could you be sure that you had looked in all the right places? Had you checked for all the different sorts of elephants? Did that include ornamental elephants on shelves? 

Aside: as it happens, I do have an ornamental blue hippopotamus on the window sill in front of me as I type this. A rather handsome ornament, possibly a replica of something Egyptian from the British Museum shop for such stuff, but probably actually acquired from a car boot sale.

Secondly, much longer ago, I remember reading about how there were students at Cambridge in the 1930's who were fond of discussing Wittgenstein over pints of plain in or outside of the Fort St. George, a public house on the river side of Midsummer Common. A house which is not what it was, even in my school days.

Thirdly, I remembered that I now had a copy of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, reference 4, bought a couple of years ago in the margins of reference 5. Not opened, certainly not much opened since. Not enough opened for me to remember that it was a red book rather than a blue book, which meant that it took me a few minutes to lay my hands on it. This edition has an index, so I was able to look up the 25 or so references to existence, although there were none for non-existence. None of which, at least in the few seconds allowed, seemed to have much to do with hippopotami.

Furthermore, without understanding much of what I saw, I came away with the feeling that it was all terribly old-fashioned. Most people gave up long ago on trying to build these universal systems of thought and logic. But maybe I will try to read Russell's preface: he can be an accessible and entertaining writer.

But Mumford no.

PS 1: checking, I find that Russell gets much more air time in these pages than Wittgenstein. See, for example, references 6 and 7.

PS 2: I have just been reminded that I am now a fully paid up (if not yet card carrying) member of the Labour Party. To be exact, more than fully paid up. I don't suppose I shall go to meetings, which I suspect I would find tiresome in the absence of both alcohol and tobacco, but it did seem right to do something. At the very least, respectable people have got to give our fat leader a run for his money.

References

Reference 1: Apropos of nothing - FT, NYRB - 2022. July 21st.

Reference 2: https://www.joywalker.ca/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/missing.html.

Reference 4: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - Wittgenstein - 1921/1971.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/07/odds-and-ends.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/disposal.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/07/civics.html.

Reference 8: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/stephen-mumford/. The one who did not make the cut.