Ludwig Wittgenstein designed a house in Vienna for his sister, right down to the door handles. These door handles have been reproduced, and I had them installed all over my house. I gain great satisfaction from them. I like the idea that a philosopher can design a door handle and it can be such a nice door handle.
Alain de Botton, talking about his door handles, in the
4 comments:
Many years back I went camping with my parents and younger brother at Skjolden in Norway.
This is where, early in the last century, the young Wittgenstein built a cottage overlooking the water, and where he developed most of the symbolic system of truth functions which would later become the Tractatus.
At that time the name Wittgenstein meant nothing to me. My father had to lure my brother and me up the steep, unmarked and overgrown path that lead to the ruined cabin. The place was marked with the tattered remnants of an Austrian flag. It was clearly not the most popular hike.
Later, at the university, I would understand the importance of this brilliant thinker who not only fathered one, but two competing and entirely different schools of philosophy. But I must admit it didn't really take. I was perhaps drawn to more flamboyant and less methodic thinkers.
When I think about Wittgenstein now, I think of the years that came after the Skjolden hermitage and that time of quiet introspection: The Great War. This brilliant young thinker suddenly volunteering to the Austrian artillery.
I think of Lieutenant Wittgenstein on the Southern front: He and his men are encircled by the Italians, their howitzer barrel has cracked, they are desperate.
The young philosopher is hard at work. He is winding bronze wire around the trunk of a tree the same diameter as the shells. By means of an intense fire he fuses the metal into a gun barrel, constructing his very own mortar my a method dating back to antiquity.
As an old mortar observer I must say that story really warms my heart.
I like the idea that a philosopher can design a weapon and that it can be such a deadly weapon. Moahahahahaha.
(thank god for the evil laugh -- your first comment seemed so, well, earnest and sincere -- I found it a bit unnerving.)
Reminds me of some handles and other hardware that used to be sold, imported from Europe, by a Chicago company called 'Ironmonger.' My mother worked for them in the 80s; I wonder if they're still around?
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