The way music speaks. Do not forget that a poem, even though it is
composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-
game of giving information. (§160)^13But although this proposition allies poetry to philosophy in that neither is
characterized by the information-giving function of the sciences or social
sciences, our initial question remains: how can Wittgenstein’s “philosophical
remarks” be taken as poetic when they are so markedly stripped of the usual
“poetic” trappings? And further, given that Wittgenstein’s propositions seem
to have the same force whether we read them in the original German, or in
English, French, or Japanese, what is the relation of “poetic” to “philosophi-
cal” meaning?
One possible answer—and this case is often made—is that what makes
Wittgenstein’s writing “poetic” is his use of homilies and proverbs animated
by metaphors of charming and almost childlike simplicity: for example,
“Talent is a spring from which fresh water is constantly ®owing” (Culture and
Va l u e 10), “Ideas too sometimes fall from the tree before they are ripe” (27),
or the famous lines “What is your aim in philosophy?—To shew the ®y the
way out of the ®y-bottle” in the Investigations (§309). But such ¤gurative
language may well have more to do with rhetorical strategy—the ethical ar-
gument that gives Wittgenstein credence as someone we can trust—than
with the enigmatic nature of Wittgenstein’s real questions, which, what-
ever homely metaphor is used for pedagogical purposes, ultimately revolve
around the literal meaning of everyday words. “Why can’t a dog simulate
pain? Is he too honest?” (§250).
A better clue to Wittgenstein’s concept of the poetic is provided by the
distinction he repeatedly draws between science and mathematics. “Man,” we
read in a 1930 entry in Culture and Value, “perhaps populations in general—
must awaken to wonder. Science is a way of putting him back to sleep” (5).
And again:
People sometimes say they cannot make any judgment about this or
that because they have not studied philosophy. This is irritating non-
sense, because the assumption is that philosophy is some sort of sci-
ence. And it is talked about almost as if it were the study of medicine.—
But what one can say is that people who have never undertaken an
investigation of a philosophical kind, as have, for example, most mathe-
maticians, are not equipped with the right visual organs for this type
of investigation or scrutiny. (29)Wittgenstein on Translation 69