இது விட்ஜென்ஸ்டைன் பற்றி நான் எழுதிய ஒரு ஆங்கிலக் கட்டுரை. அவரைப் படிக்க ஆரம்பித்த காலத்தில் ஒரு சிறிய நூலை எழுதலாம் என நினைத்து ஒன்றிரண்டு அத்தியாயங்கள் எழுதினேன். (பின்னர் விட்ஜென்ஸ்டைனில் இருந்து விலகி வந்து விட்டேன்.) நேற்று போகனும், கோகுலும் விட்ஜென்ஸ்டைனைப் பற்றி எழுதி என் நினைவுகளைக் கிளறியதால் இக்கட்டுரையை - மூன்று பகுதிகளாக - இங்கு பகிரலாம் எனத் தோன்றியது.
Gone Mad எனும் சாக்லேட் விளம்பரத்தை எங்கள் பல்கலைக்கழக கபெட்டேரியாவின் கடை வாசலில் கண்ட போது ஏற்பட்ட ஒரு சிறிய குழப்பமே இந்த கட்டுரைக்கு வழிவகுத்தது. அந்த விளம்பர வாசகம் “I’m the New Craze. Try Me” என்கிறது. இதில் சாக்லேட் அநேகமாய் ஒரு பெண்ணாகத் தன்னை முன்வைக்கிறது. ஒரு பகுத்தறிவுசார் கேள்வியைக் கேட்டோமானால் சாக்லேட் என்பது உயிரில்லாத பொருள் தானே, ஏன் அதற்கு ஒரு தன்னிலைக் குரலை (first person) இந்த விளம்பர வாசக எழுத்தாளர் அளிக்கிறார்? This is the New Craze எனச் சொன்னாலும் இந்தளவுக்கு நன்றாக இருக்காது. ஏன்? இதை அடுத்து சாக்லேட்டுக்கு ஒரு சுயம், ஒரு உடல் இருப்பதாய் நாம் கற்பிக்கிறோமா எனும் கேள்விகள் அடுத்தடுத்து. அன்று என்னருகே ஆயுஷ் இருந்தான். நாங்கள் காபியை அருந்தியபடி இக்கேள்விகளுக்கு விடையை பரிசீலித்துக் கொண்டிருக்கிறோம். கையில் விட்ஜென்ஸ்டைனின் Tractatus புத்தகம் இருக்கிறது. அவரது “அருளாசியுடன்” இந்த கேள்விகளை அணுக புதுத்திறப்புகள் எங்களுக்குக் கிடைத்தன. நாங்கள் அன்று விவாதித்ததில் என் தரப்பு இக்கட்டுரையானது.
Does a Chocolate Bar have a Self of its Own and What might Wittgenstein Say of this? (1)
Though we often assume that the subjective self is an intact entity, running on its own fuel, autonomous, a thinking being, the deciding authority and the center of one’s consciousness. As Nandhikkara puts it, “the inner confers a kind of unity to the living human being that is categorically different from the unity conferred by the body. It is a unity that is captured especially from within, from the first-person perspective.” (91). For example, I read a piece of news which annoys me - say a scam or an irresponsible comment by a political leaders. My dismay arrives from the fixated “I” who reacts to it. While this take is fine, we often ignore that the “I” is neither a subjective self nor a material object (obviously!). It is not material since, say when I say I have running temperature, it is not my mind or my self that is having fever. It is not my body either that is on its own having fever. The body has fever, that is what your doctor may claim. But you always claim that it “you” who is experiencing it, which is true; otherwise it is your body that must visit the doctor and seek treatment, not “you”. The doctor addresses you as the patient, but it is your body that is the subject of his treatment. To the doctor’s eyes, you are two entities - the person who is self + body, a self experienced through body, and a body that is bereft of self but that is the domain of the self. So the doctor splits you into two and deals with both the entities as objectively as he can. That is why the doctor hardly flinches and never sheds tears when you describe your misery to him. He is trained that way - not to seek objectivity in his appraisal of a human subject. Rather he is trained to distinctly see the person as two-in-one. After a while he stops bothering about your volition towards the body. He takes complete control. He decides what your symptoms mean, the treatment you require, the medicine you consume and duration you are under his treatment. He says “visit me after two weeks.” He doesn’t seek to know whether you are available to meet him after two weeks. Your life is no more in your hands; he has taken over the reins.
The doctor gets such unquestionable authority over the patient because, inadvertently, we have come to believe that while the body is intact, can be defined and has its sanctity, the self is not so easily definable.
The self cannot be “seen” like the body. The self always needs the body to substitute for it, but it is not fail proof. The substitution is problematic - a fair person is fair in his disposition, in his values, in his treatment of others; but his fairness cannot be placed in public display, in a museum. His fairness has to be displayed via his actions. His actions could be found to be unfair by some, and fair by some. He is faced with the uncertainty of his fairness; so he practises it more often; he creates a system of rules to ensure fairness, so that when he acts he performs decisively in his actions. The dilemma of a fair human being is not just to be just, but to act just. Action is manifested by his body, but his body is not fairness. Though his body is not at all fairness, he cannot be fair without acting as an agent of fairness. “Human beings are not, however, identical with their bodies. Though I am bodily, I am not my body. ‘We can’t substitute for “I” a description of a body’ (BB 74)”. While we claim that fairness is bodily, the bodilyness of fairness is not distinctly it. Fairness as a value is not manifested by the body (it would be simpler it it were so); it is not manifested by one’s actions (since actions can be misunderstood - Ram is often misunderstood in his acts of dharma in Ramayana); it is not just your disposition or decision making, as it can not be put across as a proposition, if it cannot be visually proposed (as Wittgenstein would have it).
The moment you say some one is fair, we assume it is his actions that are fair, not he as a person per se. Why actions?
Well, only actions can be seen and we can’t say something is such unless we can see it. “He is so loving and sweet” - These are not mental attributes, these are attributes of action. He is brave, he is genuine, he is honest - all these are attributes of action. All these are problematic for being attributes of action - they are neither completely mental attributes nor are purely they action-based attributes.
From this problematic position arrives the dilemma of what is one’s subjecthood, his self, his mind, his spirit, his soul. This has led us to view oneself as a split subject - ‘we are mind and body yoked together’, we imagine. This makes it convenient to conceive of us as the master of the beast that is our body. From this position has come to being the split state of affairs when a doctor could perceive the patient as just the body as a machine under repair; but it is not just a body - the body cannot be controlled by society but a person can be. So the doctor now split the body as an objective phenomenon into the one without volition and the one with the partial volition of the selfhood of the person who is the patient. The person in the body turns out to be the intermediate agent who has to carry out the impositions of the medical practioner. But when we look deeper into this construct we see the breaches.
(to be continued)
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