Dostoevsky and Wittgenstein: “From the Logic toward the World”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of some Wittgenstein’s ideas in relation to similar ideas of Dostoevsky. The comparison is given on a number of key topics for both: the world as the whole as it is and what it is; the image of the world and the meaning of life; the world of the happy and the unhappy. Despite the fundamental difference between the thinkers, the comparison makes it possible to discover an affinity with Dostoyevsky’s worldview of values in Wittgenstein. The analysis of his “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”, the philosopher’s “Diaries” and “Lecture on Ethics” in comparison with the analysis of the Russian writer’s fiction texts, helps us to discover those religious and spiritual foundations that both hide and expose to the thoughtful reader beyond the “border and logic of the world”, about which one suggests silence, while the other hides and demonstrates only through the opposite form of false Christianity. The comparison allows us to see that, for Wittgenstein, making sense of the world as the meaning of life is not as silent as he himself claims. At the same time, it was the philosopher’s language of description that allowed us to discover Dostoevsky’s theodicy within the rational world, visibly crucifying Christ but tacitly living it.