state the difference
Joban cheema
2022Week1ReadingMaterial2.docx
Week 1, Reading Material
Regarding each passage below, you can write down notes of what you think on one or two of these questions listed above, as preparation for Major Project No.1 (the commentary part).
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Do you still ride a horse if you know you might be thrown at any time?
I [Wittgenstein] am very much in love with R. [Marguerite Respinger], have been for a long time of course, but it is especially strong now. And yet I know that the matter is in all probability hopeless. That is, I must be braced that she might get engaged & married any moment. And I know that this will be very painful for me. I therefore know that I should not hang my whole weight on this one rope since I know that eventually it will give. That is, I should remain standing with both feet on firm ground & only hold the rope but not hand on it. But that is difficult. It is difficult to love so unselfishly that one holds on to love & does not want to be held by it.—it is difficult to hold on to love in such a way that, when things go wrong one does not have to consider it a lost game but can say: I was prepared for that & this is also alright. One could say “if you never sit on the horse and thus entrust yourself to it completely, then of course you can never be thrown but also never hope ever to ride. And all one can say to that is: You must wholly dedicate yourself to the horse & yet be braced that you may be thrown at any time. ( Ludwig Wittgenstein, Public and Private Occasions (PPO), ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, 2003, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Movements of Thought: Diaries 1930-1932, 1936-1937, pp.33-34)
Have reasons to suppose now that Marguerite does not particularly care for me. And that is very strange for me. One voice in me says: Then it’s over, & you must lose heart. –And another one says: That must not get you down, you had to anticipate it, & your life cannot be founded upon the occurrence of some, even if greatly desired case.
And the latter voice is right, but then this is the case of a human being who lives & is tormented by pain. He must struggle so that the pain does not spoil life for him. And then one is anxious about times of weakness.
This anxiety is of course only a weakness itself, or cowardice. For one always likes to rest, not having to fight. God be with her! (Wittgenstein, PPO, p.79)
Believe that at any moment God can demand everything from you! Be truly aware of this! Then ask that he grant you the gift of life! For you can fall into madness at any time or become unhappy through & through if you don’t do something that is demanded of you!
It is one thing to talk to God & another to talk of God to others. (PPO, p.183)
Matthew Henry (1662-1714)
What if you were robbed
One day, having been robbed, the Bible commentator Matthew Henry (1662-1714) wrote: “I thank Thee [God] first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.” (see http://thinkexist.com/quotes/matthew_henry/ or http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matthew_Henry)
Job (in the Book of Job)
How to cope with suffering
1:13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 14 a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, 15 and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
16 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
17 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
18 While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 19 when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.[ c] The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
2 On another day the angels[ a] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”
4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.
9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish[ b] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
3:1 After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 He said:
3 “May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’ 4 That day—may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine on it.
3:11“Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?
42:1 [After God explained to Job how the world was created with wonderful things beyond Job]
Then Job replied to the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Amoi Fati (Love Fate)
The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, an in the same succession and sequence--even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, unto you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? (Nietzsche, Gay Science, 341)
“Pain, too, is a joy….Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? …then you said Yes, too, to all woe. All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored. If ever you wanted one thing twice, if ever you said “you please me, happiness! Abide, moment!” then you wanted back all. All anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored—oh, then you loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore: and to woe, too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants—eternity!...You higher men, do learn this, joy wants eternity. Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity! (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, IV 19)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
To live right—till the end
The horrible instant in an unblessed death must be the thought: “oh if only I had….Now it’s too late.” Oh if only I had lived right! And the blessed instant must be: “Now it is accomplished!”—But how must one have lived in order to tell oneself this! I think there must be degrees here, too. But I myself, where am I? How far from the good & how close to the lower end! (Wittgenstein, PPO, p.185)
A few days before the end of his own life, Wittgenstein said to his student Drury “Isn’t it curious that, although I know I have not long to live, I never find myself thinking about a ‘future life’. All my interest is still on this life and the writing I am still able to do.” (Monk, Duty of Genius, p.580) This seems to link to his view on the alleged immortality of the soul: “Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended.” (TLP, 6.4312).
“The last remark of On Certainty was written on 27 April [1951], the day before Wittgenstein finally lost consciousness. The day before that was his sixty-second birthday. He knew it would be his last. When Mrs. Bevan presented him with an electric blanket, saying as she gave it to him: “Many happy returns’, he stared hard at her and replied: ‘there will be no returns.’ He was taken violently ill the next night, after he and Mrs Bevan had returned from their nightly stroll to the pub. When told by Dr. Bevan that he would live only a few more days, he exclaimed ‘Good!’ Mrs. Bevan stayed with him the night of the 28th, and told him that his close friends in England would be coming the next day. Before losing consciousness he said to her: ‘Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.’” (Monk, Duty of Genius, p. 579)
