العقل والنقل بين الشريعة والفلسفة

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 11/27/2013

تتحدد الصورة العامة لإشكالية التعارض في عبارة الرازي:
إذا تعارضت الأدلة السمعية والعقلية، أو السمع والعقل، أو النقل والعقل، أو الظواهر النقلية والقواطع العقلية، أو نحو ذلك من العبارات، فإما أن يُجمع بينهما، وهو محال، لأنه جمع بين النقيضين، وإما أن يردا جميعاً، وإما أن يقدم السمع، وهو محال، لأن العقل أصل النقل فلو قدمناه عليه كان ذلك قدحاً في العقل الذي هو أصل النقل، والقدح في أصل الشيء قدح فيه، فكان تقديم النقل قدحاً في النقل والعقل جميعاً، فوجب تقديم العقل. ثم النقل إما أن يُتأول وإما أن يفوض وأما إذا تعارضا تعارض الضدين امتنع الجمع بينهما ولم يمتنع ارتفاعهما
فالرازي لا يشكك في كون الوحي مصدراً معرفياً، بل ينطلق من النص القرآني في تحديد التصور الكلي للوجود، كما فعل في كتابه أساس التقديس. لكنه يدعو إلى تأويل نصوص الكتاب إذا استحال حمل معناها على ظاهرها، وإلى رد أخبار الآحاد عند تعارضها مع أحكام العقل القطعية.  لذلك نجد الرازي يحمل بشدة على المحدِّثين الذين ينهون عن اعتماد "العقل" لتأويل متشابه الكتاب، اعتقاداً منهم أن إعمال العقل في النص يؤدي إلى تفسير القرآن الكريم وفق فهوم بشرية ظنية محدودة، بينما تجدهم يلجؤون إلى أحاديث آحاد مظنونة تعطي تفسيرات تتصادم مع نصوص القرآن القطعية:
والعجب من الحشوية أنهم يقولون: الاشتغال بتأويل الآيات المتشابهة غير جائز، لأن تعيين ذلك التأويل مظنون. والقول بالظن في القرآن لا يجوز. ثم إنهم يتكلمون في ذات الله تعالى وصفاته بأخبار الآحاد، مع أنها في غاية البعد عن القطع واليقين. إذا لم يجوّزا تفسير ألفاظ القرآن بالطريق المظنون، فلأن يمتنعوا عن الكلام في ذات الحق تعالى وفي صفاته بمجرد الروايات الضعيفة أولى
يحدد ابن تيمية موقفه من إشكالية التعارض بأن مرجعية العقل في إثبات صدق الوحي والنبوة، ولكنه ينـزع منه الحق في مخالفة المنقول الذي يستمد مصداقيته من الوحي والنبوة، فالعقل كما يرى ابن تيمية
متولٍّ وليّ الرسول ثم عزل نفسه، لأن العقل دل على أن الرسول يجب تصديقه فيما أخبر، وطاعته فيما أمر 
وبالدعوة إلى تقديم النقل على العقل حال تعارضهما، فيقول:
إذا تعارض الشرع والعقل وجب تقديم الشرع، لأن العقل مصدق للشرع في كل ما أخبر به، والشرع لم يصدق العقل في كل ما أخبره به
 لذلك نرى ابن تيمية يشدد على رفض تحكيم العقلي في المنقول الظني، فيقول في معرض الرد على من يدعو إلى استبعاد الخبر لضعف إسناده أو اضطراب متنه:
فإن قالوا إنما أردنا معارضة ما يظن أنه دليل وليس بدليل أصلاً، أو يكون دليلاً ظنياً لتطرق الظن إلى بعض مقدماته، إما في الإسناد وإما في المتن، كإمكان كذب المخبر أو غلطه، وكإمكان احتمال اللفظ لمعنيين فصاعداً، قيل إذا فسرتم الدليل السمعي بما ليس بدليل في نفس الأمر، بل اعتقاد دلالته جهل، أو بما يظن أنه دليل وليس بدليل، أمكن أن يفسر الدليل العقلي المعارض للشرع بما ليس بدليل في نفس الأمر، بل اعتقاد دلالته جهل، أو يظن أنه دليل وليس بدليل
لنضرب مثالا بقضية الاستواء فمفهوم أهل السنة والاجتماع  فى تلك القضية يتمثل فى مقولة الامام مالك فى وجوب التسليم والتفويض لله بالفهم. وهذا ما يفعله الراسخون بالعلم وفقا للاية ويلتزم الشيخ محمد عبده بهذا المبدأ عند الحديث عن ذات الله وهذا أقرب موقف فى قضية التأويل لفيتجنشتاين حيث ان ما لا تعرف كنهه جيدا ولا تفكر فيه بوضوح لابد وان تصمت فى الحديث عنه.
أخبرنا أبو بكر أحمد بن محمد بن الحارث الفقيه الأصفهاني ، أنا أبو محمد عبد الله بن محمد بن جعفر بن حيان المعروف بأبي الشيخ ، ثنا أبو جعفر أحمد بن زيرك اليزدي ، سمعت محمد بن عمرو بن النضر النيسابوري ، يقول : سمعت يحيى بن يحيى ، يقول : كنا عند مالك بن أنس فجاء رجل فقال : يا أبا عبد الله ، ( الرحمن على العرش استوى) فكيف استوى ؟ قال : فأطرق مالك برأسه حتى علاه الرحضاء ، ثم قال : الاستواء غير مجهول ، والكيف غير معقول ، والإيمان به واجب ، والسؤال عنه بدعة ، وما أراك إلا مبتدعا . فأمر به أن يخرج
ننتقل للغزالى وتأكيده المستمر على أهميةَ العقل، واعتباره أن العقل
الحاكم الذي لا يعزل ولا يبدل، وشاهد الشرع المزكى المعدل
فمثال العقل: البصر السليم من الآفات والأذى، ومثال القرآن: الشمس المنتشرة الضياء، فأخلق ان يكون طالب الاهتداء المستغنى إذا استغنى بأحدهما عن الآخر في غمار الاغبياء. فالمعرض عن العقل، مكتفيا بنور القرآن، مثاله: المتعرض لنور الشمس مغمضا للأجفان، فلا فرق بينه وبين العميان. فالعقل مع الشرع نور على نور 
من لم يشك لم ينظر ، ومن لم ينظر لم يبصر ، ومن لم يبصر 
والغزالى كأشعرى فهو يدعو لتقديم العقل على النقل فى حال التعارض بالتأويل لما يتعارض مع العقل
 ثم كلما ورد السمع به ينظر: فإن كان العقل مجوزاً له، وجب التصديق به قطعاً، إن كانت الأدلة السمعية قاطعة في متنها ومستندها لا يتطرق إليها احتمال...وأما ما قضى العقل باستحالته، فيجب تأويل ما ورد السمع به، ولا يتصور أن يشمل السمع على قاطع مخالف للمعقول.وظواهر أحاديث التشبيه أكثرها غير صحيحة، والصحيح منها ليس بقاطع، بل هو قابل للتأويل
فإن توقف العقل في شيء من ذلك فلم يقض فيه باستحالة ولا جواز، وجب التصديق أيضاً لأدلة السمع، فيكفي في وجوب التصديق انفكاك العقل عن القضاء بالإحالة، وليس يشترط اشتماله على القضاء بالجواز
 فيقول الغزالي عن صفة الاستواء:
العلم بأنه تعالى مستو على عرشه بالمعنى الذي أراده تعالى بالاستواء، وهو الذي لا ينافي وصف الكبرياء، ولا يتطرق إليه سمات الحدوث، وهو الذي أريد بالاستواء إلى السماء حيث قال في القرآن (ثم استوى إلى السماء وهي دخان) وليس ذلك إلا بطريق القهر والاستيلاء
 ولكن حدود التأويل هى قواطع الشرع , لذا فقد هاجم الفلاسفة المنتسبين للأفلاطونية الجديدة المؤمنين بنظرية الاشعاع فى الخلق لانهم كذبوا قواطع الشرع كما هاجم الحشوية الظاهرية الى تلغى العقل
وتحققوا أن لا معاندة بين الشرع المنقول والحق المعقول. وعرفوا أن من ظن من الحشوية وجوب الجمود على التقليد، واتباع الظواهر ما أتوا به إلا من ضعف العقول وقلة البصائر. وإن من تغلغل من الفلاسفة وغلاة المعتزلة في تصرف العقل حتى صادموا به قواطع الشرع، ما أتوا به إلا من خبث الضمائر. فميل أولئك إلى التفريط وميل هؤلاء إلى الافراط، وكلاهما بعيد عن الحزم والاحتياط. 
واتهم الفلاسفة بالعشرين مسأله فى كتابه تهافت الفلاسفه ومنها بأنهم
انكروا وقوع إبراهيم عليه السلام في النار، مع عدم الاحتراق وبقاء النار ناراً وزعموا أن ذلك لايمكن إلا بسلب الحرارة عن النار، وذلك يخرجها عن كونها نارا
ولكن رغم ان معظم القضايا الى أولها الاشاعرة كانت نتيجة تنزيه الله(معرفتهم ما ليس عليه الله) وليس عن (معرفة الله ذاته) فبالتالى وقعوا فى الخطأ الى انتقده الغزالى وسبق به فيتنغشتاين كما سنبين لاحقا

ولكن الغزالى فى اول سابقة بين الفلاسفة قد بين حدود العقل التى بدأها بعده كانت من ناحية اكمال الحس لقصور العقل وفيتجنشتاين فى الفرق بين ما نستطيع ان نفكر فيه والمحال ان نفكر فيه

أن الشرع كيف يرد بما ينبو عنه العقل ؟ وهو فاسد لأن قوله : ( ينبو عنه العقل ) لفظ مشترك ، فإن أراد به أن برهان العقل يدل على استحالته ، كخلق الله مثل نفسه والجمع بين المتضادين ، فهذا مما لا يرد به الشرع ، ولم يرد ، وإن أراد به ما يقصر العقل عن دركه ولا يستقل بالإحاطة بِكُنْهه ، فهذا ليس بمحال ، بل مقصود بعثة الأنبياء إرشاد الخلق إلى ما تقصر عقولهم عنه فليس بمحال أن يكون في علم الأطباء مثلاً جذب المغناطيس للحديد ، والمرأة الحامل لو مشت فوق حبة مخصوصة ألقت الجنين ، وغير ذلك من الخواص ، وهذا مما ينبو عنه العقل ، بمعنى أنه لا يقف على حقيقته ، ولا يستقل بالاطلاع عليه ، ولا ينبو عنه ، بمعنى الحكم باستحالته ، وليس كل ما لا يدركه العقل محالاً في نفسه ، بل لو لم نشاهد النار قط وإحراقها ، فأخبرنا مخبر , وقال : إني أحك حبة بحبة , وأستخرج من بينهما سنًا أحمر بمقدار عدسة تأكل هذه البلد وغيرها حتى لا يبقى فيها شيء من غير أن ينتقل ذلك إلى جوفها ، ومن غير أن يزيد في حجمها ، بل تأكل البلد ثم تأكل نفسها ، فلا تبقى ، لا هي ولا البلد ، لكنا نقول : هذا شيء ينبو عنه العقل ، ولا يقبله ، وهذه صورة النار ، والحس قد صدق ذلك ، فكذلك يستعمل الشرع على مثل هذه العجائب التي ليست مستحيلةً ، وإنما هي مستبعدة , وفرق بين البعيد والمحال ، فإن البعيد هو الذي ليس بمألوف ، والمحال ما لا يتصور كونه 
وفى معرض انتقاده للصوفية الذين يذمون العقل سبق الغزالى فيتجنشتاين فى ان الاضطراب فى الحقائق أصله اضطراب فى اللغه
فما بال أقوام من المتصوفة يذمون العقل والمعقول؟فاعلم أن السبب فيه ان الناس نقلوا اسم العقل المعلقول إلى المجادلة والمناظرة بالمتناقضات والإلزامات،وهو صنعة الكلام،فلم يقدروا على ان يقرروا عندهم انكم اخطأتم فى التسمية إذ كان لاينمحى عن قلوبهم بعد تداول الألسنة به ورسوخه فى القلوب فذموا العقل والمعقول وهو المسمى به عندهم،فأما نور البصيرة التى بها يعرف الله تعالى ويعرف صدق رسله،فكيف يتصور ذمه وقد أثنى الله تعالى عليه وإن ذم فما الذى بعده يحمد؟!فإن كان المحمود هو الشرع فبم علم صحة الشرع؟ فإن علم بالعقل المذموم الذى لايوثق به فيكون الشرع أيضا مذموما ولايلتفت إلى من يقول:إنه يدرك بعين اليقين ونور الإيمان لا بالعقل،فإنا نريد بالعقل:مايريده بعين اليقين ونور الإيمان،وهى الصفة الباطنة التى يتميز بها الآدمى عن البهائم حتى أدرك بها حقائق الأمور،وأكثر هذه التخبطات إنما ثارت من جهل من طلبوا الحقائق من الألفاظ فتخبطوا فيها لتخبط اصطلاحات الناس فى الألفاظ
 ولكن تقسيم العلوم إلى عقلي وديني دفع الغزالي إلى تهميش العلوم العقلية. فالعلوم العقلية، كما يرى الغزالي، تنقسم إلى
عقلي محض لا يحث الشرع عليه ولا يندب إليه، كالحساب والهندسة والنجوم وأمثاله من العلوم فهي بين ظنون كاذبة لائقة، وإن بعض الظن إثم، وبين علوم صادقة لا منفعة لها، ونعوذ بالله من علم لا ينفع، وليست المنفعة في الشهوات الحاضرة والنعم الفاخرة، فإنها فانية دائرة، بل النفع ثواب دار الآخرة
كما انه انكر حتمية العلاقة بين السبب والمسبب لانها بامر الله الذى يوقفها كما شاء وكيفما شاء كنار ابراهيم عليه السلام وليس العلاقة السببية نفسها كما يشيعه البعض, كما رأى أنَّ التتابع لا يعني بالضرورة هذا الارتباط بين الحادث السابق الذي نسميه العلة والحادث اللاحق الذي نسميه معلولاً، وهو ما يعني لديه أنَّ الإرادة الإلهية هي الفاعلة في الأشياء.
الاقتران بين ما يعتقد في العادة سبباً وما يعتقد مسبباً ليس ضرورياً عندنا بل كل شيئين ليس هذا ذاك ولا ذاك هذا، ولا إثبات أحدهما متضمن لإثبات الآخر ولا نفيه متضمن لنفي الآخر، فليس من ضرورة وجود أحدهما وجود الآخر ولا من ضرورة عدم أحدهما عدم الآخر مثل الري والشرب والشبع والأكل والاحتراق ولقاء النار والنور وطلوع الشمس والموت وجز الرقبة والشفاء وشرب الدواء وإسهال البطن واستعمال المسهل وهلم جرا إلى كل المشاهدات من المقترنات في الطب والنجوم والصناعات والحرف، وإن اقترانها لما سبق من تقدير الله سبحانه يخلقها على التساوق لا لكونه ضرورياً في نفسه غير قابل للفرق بل في المقدور خلق الشبع دون الأكل وخلق الموت دون جز الرقبة وإدامة الحيوة مع جز الرقبة وهلم جرا إلى جميع المقترنات، وأنكر الفلاسفة إمكانه وادعوا استحالته.
يقول ابن رشد ردا على الغزالى
وأما ما نسبه من الاعتراض على معجزة إبراهيم فشيء لم يقله إلا الزنادقة، فإن الحكماء من الفلاسفة ليس يجوز عندهم التكلم ولا الجدل في مبادئ الشريعة. وفاعل ذلك عندهم محتاج إلى الأدب الشديد. ذلك أنه لما كانت كل صناعة لها مبادئ وواجب على الناظر في تلك الصناعة أن يسلم مبادئها ولا يعرض لها بنفي ولا بإبطال كانت الصناعة العملية الشرعية أحرى بذلك.. والذي يجب أن يقال فيها: إن مبادئها هي أمور إلهية تفوق العقول الإنسانية فلا بد من أن يعترف بها، مع جهل أسبابها. لذلك لا نجد أحداً من القدماء تكلم في المعجزات مع انتشارها وظهورها في العالم ولأنها مبادئ تثبيت الشرائع والشرائع مبادئ الفضائل
إن منهج ابن رشد العقلى فى تأويل النص يتلخص فى مقولته التالية فى كتابه فصل المقال فيما بين الحكمة والشريعة من الاتصال
وإذا كانت هذه الشريعة، حقاً وداعية إلى النظر المؤدي إلى معرفة الحق فإنّا، معشر المسلمين، نعلم على القطع أنه لا يؤدي النظر البرهاني إلى مخالفة ما ورد به الشرع. فإن الحق لا يضاد الحق، بل يوافقه ويشهد له. وإذا كان هذا هكذا، فإن أدى النظر البرهاني إلى نحو ما من المعرفة بموجود ما، فلا يخلو ذلك الموجود أن يكون قد سكت عنه في الشرع أو عرف به. فإن كان مما قد سكت عنه فلا تعارض هنالك، هو بمنزلة ما سكت عنه من الأحكام، فاستنبطها الفقيه بالقياس الشرعي. وإن كانت الشريعة نطقت به، فلا يخلو ظاهر النطق أن يكون موافقاً لما أدى إليه البرهان فيه أو مخالفاً. فإن كان موافقاً، فلا قول هنالك. وإن كان مخالفاً، طلب هنالك تأويله. ومعنى التأويل هو إخراج دلالة اللفظ من الدلالة الحقيقية إلى الدلالة المجازة من غير أن يخل في ذلك بعادة لسان العرب في التجوز من تسمية الشيء بشبيهه أو بسببه أو لاحقه أو مقارنه أو غير ذلك من الأشياء التي عددت، في تعريف أصناف الكلام المجازي
قد يأخذ البعض من الكلام السابق ان ابن رشد يفتح باب التأويل لكل ما يخالف العقل فى الشريعه وهذا ليس صحيحا لانه يعود ويوضح الفرق بين تأويل الاصول والمبادئ وبين  تأويل ما بعد المبادئ.
وهذا النحو من الظاهر إن كان في الأصول فالمتأول له كافر، مثل من يعتقد أنه لا سعادة أخروية ولا شقاء، وأنه إنما قصد بهذا القول أن يسلم الناس بعضهم من بعض في أبدانهم وحواسهم، وأنها حيلة، وأنه لا غاية للإنسان إلا وجوده المحسوس فقط. وإذا تقرر هذا، فقد ظهر لك من قولنا أن ههنا ظاهراً من الشرع لا يجوز تأويله. فإنا كان تأويله في المبادئ فهو كفر، وإن كان فيما بعد المبادئ فهو بدعة. وههنا أيضاً ظاهره يجب على أهل البرهان تأويله، علهم إياه على ظاهره كفر. وتأويل غير أهل البرهان له وإخراجه عن ظاهره كفر في حقهم أو بدعة. ومن هذا الصنف آية الاستواء وحديث النزول
لكن اذا حدث واجمع الفقهاء على المعنى الظاهر فهل يجوز تكفير من يتأول فى تلك الحاله؟ يرد ابن رشد قائلا
أما لو ثبت الإجماع بطريق يقيني فلم يصح، وأما إن كان الإجماع فيها ظنياً فقد يصح. ولذلك أبو حامد وأبو المعالي وغيرهما من أئمة النظر أنه لا يُقطع بكفر من خرق الإجماع في التأويل في أمثال هذه الأشياء. وقد يدلك على أن الإجماع لا يتقرر في النظريات بطريق يقيني كما يمكن أن يتقرر في العمليات؛ أنه ليس يمكن أن يتقرر الإجماع في مسألة ما في عصر ما إلا بأن يكون ذلك العصر عندنا محصوراً، وأن يكون جميع العلماء الموجودين في ذلك العصر معلومين عندنا، أعني معلوماً أشخاصهم ومبلغ عددهم، وأن ينقل إلينا في المسألة مذهب كل واحد منهم نقل تواتر، ويكون مع هذا كله قد صح عندنا أن العلماء الموجودين في ذلك الزمان متفقون على أنه ليس في الشرع ظاهر أو باطن، وأن العلم بكل مسألة يجب أن لا يكتم عن أحد، وأن الناس طريقهم واحد في علم الشريعة. وأما كثير من الصدر الأول فقد نقل عنهم أنهم كانوا يرون أن للشرع ظاهراً وباطناً، وأنه ليس يجب أن يعلم بالباطن من ليس من أهل العلم به ولا يقدر على فهمه - مثل ما روى البخاري عن علي رضي الله عنه أنه قال: (حدثوا الناس بما يعرفون، أتريدون أن يكذب الله ورسوله)
 فالناس  ثلاثة أصناف
  1. صنف ليس من اهل التأويلوهم عامة الناس من الجمهور وهؤلاء  تنفع معهم الادلة الخطابية أو الجمهورية، لقصورهم عن إدراك  الأشياء التي يتوصل إليها بالبراهين.
  2. صنف من اهل التاويل الجدلي : ويندرج في هذا الصنف المتكلمون من المعتزلة والأشاعرة وغيرهم، ذلك أن الادلة التي يحجتون بها هي فوق الأدلة الخطابية، ودون الأدلة البرهانية ﻷنها لم تستوف شروط البرهان
  3. صنف من اهل التأويل اليقيني وهم أهل البرهان
ويترتب على هذا التقسيم أن كل صنف من هذه الأصناف يختص بنوع من الأدلة التي يجب يصرح له بها، لذالك فلا يجب أن يصرح ﻷهل الجدل بهذا التأويل فضلا عن الجمهور
ومتى صرح بشيء من هذه التاويلات لمن هو من غير أهلها – وبخاصة التأويلات البرهانية - لبعدها عن المعارف المشتركة - أفضى ذلك بالمصرح والمصرح له إلى الكفر
 إن ابن رشد يريد أن يحصر مهمة التأويل في الراسخين في العلم وحدهم فهم القادرون عليه بسبب تمكنهم من صناعة الفلسفة. وهم القادرون على نزع التناقض بين الشريعة والفلسفة أو بين العقل والنقل فيقول
فإذا نشأ الإنسان على الفضائل الشرعية كان فاضلاً بإطلاق. فإذا تمادى به الزمان والسعادة إلى أن يكون من الراسخين في العلم فعرض له تأويل مبدأ من مبادئها فيجب عليه ألاّ يصرح بذلك التأويل، وأن يقول فيه كما قال الله سبحانه (والراسخون في العلم يقولون آمناً به كل من عند ربنا) هذه هي حدود الشرائع، وحدود العلماء 
وقد حمل ابن رشد على المتكلمين من المعتزلة والاشاعرة لكونهم صرحوا لعامة الناس بتاويلاتهم
فاوقعوا الناس في شنآن وتباغض وحروب، ومزقوا الشرع وفرقوا الناس كل التفريق، وزائدا إلى هذا كله أن طرقهم التي اتبتوها في تأويلاتهم ليسوا فيها لا مع الجمهور ولا مع الخواص، أما مع الجمهور فلكونها أغمض من الطرق المشتركة للأكثر، أما مع الخواص لكونها – إذا تؤملت – وجدت ناقصة عن شرائط البرهان
ونصل أخيرا للامام محمد عبده , رغم انه اتبع مدرسة ابن تيمية فى العقيدة والصفات وسكت عنها وفوض فهمها لله , فهو قد أدخل العقل فى التفسير  حتى أنه فسر كلمة فرقان بانه العقل او "حجاره من سجيل" بأنها مرض

ونختم بقصة تبين أهمية العقل وعلم الكلام او الفلسفة ودورهم فى الاسلام, من حيث انهم - كما شرح فيتجنشتاين دور الفلسفة - يحددوا متى نتوقف عن الكلام حتى لا نقع فى أخطاء او جدال سوفسطائى. فاذا كان السؤال واضح امكن إجابته.
قال القاضي : ولما منع الرشيد من الجدال في الدين وحبس أهل علم الكلام كتب إليه ملك السند : إنك رئيس قوم لا ينصفون ، ويقلدون الرجال ، ويغلبون بالسيف ، فإن كنت على ثقة من دينك فوجه إلي من أناظره ، فإن كان الحق معك اتبعناك وإن كان معي تبعتنيفوجه إليه قاضياً ، وكان عند الملك رجل من السمنية وهو الذي حمله على هذه المكاتبة . فلما وصل القاضي إليه أكرمه ورفع مجلسه فسأله السمني فقال :
أخبرني عن معبودك هل هو القادر ؟
قال : نعم .
قال : أهو قادر على أن يخلق مثله ؟
فقال القاضي : هذه مسألة من علم الكلام وهو بدعة وأصحابنا ينكرونه .
فقال السمني : من أصحابك ؟
فقال : فلان وفلان وعد جماعة من الفقهاء .
فقال السمني للملك : قد كنت أعلمتك دينهم وأخبرتك بجهلهم وتقليدهم وغلبتهم بالسيف .قال : فأمر ذلك الملك القاضي بالانصراف ، وكتب معه إلى الرشيد : إني كنت بدأتك بالكتاب وأنا على غير يقين مما حكي لي عنكم ، فالآن قد تيقنت ذلك بحضور القاضي . وحكى له في الكتاب ما جرىفلما ورد الكتاب على الرشيد قامت قيامته وضاق صدره ، وقال : أليس لهذا الدين من يناضل عنه ؟ قالوا : بلى يا أمير المؤمنين ، هم الذين نهيتهم عن الجدال في الدين وجماعة منهم في الحبس .
فقال : أحضروهمفلما حضروا قال : ما تقولون في هذه المسألة .
فقال صبي من بينهم : هذا السؤال محال ؛ لأن المخلوق لا يكون إلا محدثاً ، والمحدث لا يكون مثل القديم ، فقد استحال أن يقال يقدر على أن يخلق مثله أو لا يقدر كما استحال أن يقال يقدر أن يكون عاجزا أو جاهلا .
فقال الرشيد : وجهوا هذا الصبي إلى السند حتى يناظرهم .
فقالوا : إنه لا يؤمن أن يسألوه عن غير هذا فيجب أن توجه من يفي بالمناظرة في كل العلم .
قال الرشيد : فمن لهم ؟
فوقع اختيارهم على معمر ( أي معمر بن عباد السلمي ) فلما قرب من السند بلغ خبره ملك السند فخاف السمني أن يفتضح على يديه وقد كان عرفه من قبل فدس من سمه في الطريق فقتله

On Liberty

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 11/25/2013

Mill addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual, the individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of society.
"The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection."
Where some may object that there is justification for certain religious prohibitions in a society dominated by that religion, he argues that members of the majority ought make rules which they would accept should they have been the minority.

The freedom of thought and speech. He was a supporter of free speech because by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. The freedom to pursue tastes (provided they do no harm to others), even if they are deemed "immoral",  he argues that this liberal system will bring people to the good more effectively than physical or emotional coercion  Furthermore, he notes the societal obligation is not to ensure that each individual is moral throughout adulthood. Rather, by educating youth, society has the opportunity and duty to ensure that a generation, as a whole, is generally moral.

It is important to keep in mind that the arguments in On Liberty are grounded on the principle of Utility, and not on appeals to natural rights. Mill supported legislation that would have granted extra voting power to university graduates on the grounds that they were in a better position to judge what would be best for society. Also, Mill argues that despotism is an acceptable form of government for those societies that are "backward", like children and "barbarian" nations which are benefited by limited freedom. While Mill admits that these freedoms could—in certain situations—be pushed aside, he claims that in contemporary and civilized societies there is no justification for their removal.

Mill first applies these principles to the economy. He concludes that free markets are preferable to those controlled by governments. His father has said on Socialism:
"These opinions if they were to spread, would be the subversion of civilized society; worse than the deluge of Huns".
Mill continues by addressing the question of social interference in suicide. He states that the purpose of liberty is to allow a person to pursue their interest. Therefore, when a person intends to terminate their ability to have interests it is permissible for society to step in. In other words, a person does not have the freedom to surrender their freedom.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 11/25/2013

Perkins defines economic hit men as the one supposed to justify huge loans for countries. These loans would be for major engineering and construction projects, which were to be carried out by MAIN and other U.S. companies such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster and Brown & Root. Then he was supposed to help bankrupt the countries that received these loans after the U.S. companies involved had been paid and only a wealthy few of the country became even wealthier while the rest of the country became more entrenched in poverty and became even more anti-American. This would make sure that these countries would remain in debt to their creditors and would then be easy targets when the U.S. needed favors such as military bases, UN votes and access to natural resources like oil. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. Economic hit men [EHM] don't actually work for a United States government organization such as the Central Intelligence Agency. It was during the 1960s that we saw the empowerment of international corporations and multinational organizations such as the World Bank. This allowed for governments, corporations and multinational organizations to form mutually beneficial relationships. United States intelligence agencies were able to use these relationships to their advantage.

Perkins' first assignment took him took to Indonesia. If the U.S. could gain control of Indonesia (with the debts that would incur thanks to the loans for these huge projects), they believed it would help ensure American dominance in Southeast Asia and save the country from communism.

In 1972, Perkins was sent to Panama to close the deal on MAIN's master development plan with the country. On his trip, Perkins met with Panama's president and charismatic leader, Omar Torrijos. Torrijos was well aware of the EHM practices and knew fully how the game was played. Torrijos did want to invest in huge advancement projects in electricity, transportation and communications for Panama, but he wanted to make certain that these projects benefited his entire country, including those living in extreme poverty. To do so would require huge amounts of money from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Next was Saudia Arabia, in 1973 and during the war, as the U.S. provided Israel with more financial aid, Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil producing countries imposed a total embargo on oil shipments to the U.S. While the embargo was short-lived, its impact was huge as Saudi oil prices jumped from $1.39 per barrel on January 1, 1970 to $8.32 on January 1, 1974. As a result, Wall Street and Washington became obsessed with protecting American oil supplies and the U.S. was forced to recognize Saudi Arabia's importance to its economy.  The U.S. wanted Saudi Arabia to guarantee to maintain oil supplies at prices that would be acceptable to the U.S. and its allies. In exchange for the guarantee, the U.S. offered the House of Saud a commitment to provide complete political and military support. The condition would be that the Saudis buy U.S. government securities with their petrodollars and that the interest earned on these securities would be used to pay U.S. companies to convert Saudi Arabia into a modern industrial power.

Ecuador's Jaime Roldos was the ideological match to Panama's Omar Torrijos. He wanted to redistribute wealth and land to the poor people of his country. Roldos had to fight multi-national oil corporations in his bid to control Ecuador's vast oil reserves. His biggest competitor was Texaco. It was rumored that in Ecuador the big oil companies had colluded with, and bought out, one group of Christian missionaries. The SIL, or Summer Institute of Language, had a stated goal of teaching English to native tribes people throughout the Central American region. The SIL was accused of persuading indigenous tribes to move off their native lands to central camps in order to receive free food, health care, and education. In return the tribes people had to agree to sign their land over to oil companies for exploration.

The sudden death of Roldos in a plane crash in spring 1981. The world reacted with the outcry of "CIA Assassination!!", however, the US media barely covered the event at all. Torrijos stood up to Reagan and rejected the SIL missionaries from Panama. Just a couple months after the strange and freak death of Roldos, Torrijos experienced his own plane crash. Security guards claimed the plane had a bomb on board and once again the world cried out,"CIA Assassination!!".

Also Venezuela has been a prized nation by economists and engineers, which has made it a target for EHM's and the corporatocracy. Until Chavez was elected in the late nineties the country lacked a leader with enough strength and charisma to stand up to the corporate behemoth. Venezuelan oil was being pumped out of the ground for the profit of foreign companies and the country was saddled with immense debts at the time Chavez was elected. Upon taking power Chavez enacted bold and sweeping new laws which strengthened his control over government and its functions and he assumed total control over the state run oil company, Petroleos De Venezuela. Agents of the US government infiltrated Venezuela and worked to foment a strike of oil workers in order to destabilize the government and force people to doubt the intentions of their populist leader. The strike occurred and a coup was attempted. In fact, there were reports that Chavez had been ousted form office, but surprisingly Chavez was able to hold onto the reigns of government and quell the fears of the nation. The CIA has failed. He regained control and fired any government official that he suspected of colluding with US agents.

Perkins also watched closely throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s as the U.S. tried to get Iraq and Saddam Hussein to buy into the EHM scenario as Saudi Arabia had done before. Hussein refused and when he invaded Kuwait, the U.S. wasted little time and attacked Iraq. Perkins knows that had Saddam have been able to be bought out by the corporatocracy, and accepted their terms, he would still be in power today.
Perkins fully realized that "the United States is a nation laboring to deny the truth about its imperialist role in the world. The republic offered hope to the world. Its foundation was moral and philosophical rather than materialistic. It was based on the concepts of equality and justice for all. The global empire, on the other hand, is the republic's nemesis. It is a self-centered, self-serving, greedy, and materialistic, a system based on mercantilism. Like empires before, its arms open only to accumulate resources, to grab everything in sight and stuff its insatiable maw. It will use whatever means it deems necessary to help its rulers gain more power and riches."

Where does the Yin Yang Symbol come from?

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 11/19/2013

Yin Yang is a well-known Chinese Yin Yang symbol. Sometimes it's called Tai-Chi symbol. The Tai-Chi is from I-Ching. The I-Ching is the greatest foundation of Chinese philosophy. It’s development is from the natural phenomena of our universe. Because I-Ching comes from nature, it should be easy.

The Chinese characters of I-Ching are . The second character means a book, a profound book. The first character means ease or change. Since I-Ching is easy, some people call it as "The Book of Ease" or "The Book of Changes". The original Chinese character of  is , which is a symbol combining the sun (top) and moon (bottom). It's easy for people to understand the philosophy by talking about the sun (Yang), moon (Yin) and universe. After observing the universe, ancient Chinese found that the universe is changing every day. Although it changes easily every day, it also has seasonal and annual cycles. From these cycles the unchanging rules are created. However, it's not easy to use the  method to find the unchanging rules from the universe and apply on human activities. That's why some people think I-Ching is easy and some don't.

Big Dipper at night
The Dipper at night
Sun Pole Clock
By observing the sky, recording the Dipper's positions and watching the shadow of the Sun from an 8-foot (Chinese measurement) pole, ancient Chinese determined the four directions. The direction of sunrise is the East; the direction of sunset is the West; the direction of the shortest shadow is the South and the direction of the longest shadow is the North. At night, the direction of the Polaris star is the North.
They noticed the seasonal changes. When the Dipper points to the East, it's spring; when the Dipper points to the South, it's summer; when the Dipper points to the West, it's fall; when the Dipper points to the North, it's winter.

When observing the cycle of the Sun, ancient Chinese simply used a pole about 8 feet long, posted at right angles to the ground and recorded positions of the shadow. Then they found the length of a year is around 365.25 days. They even divided the year's cycle into 24 Segments, including the Vernal Equinox, Autumnal Equinox, Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, using the sunrise and Dipper positions.
They used six concentric circles, marked the 24-Segment points, divided the circles into 24 sectors and recorded the length of shadow every day. The shortest shadow is found on the day of Summer Solstice. The longest shadow is found on the day of Winter Solstice. After connecting each lines and dimming Yin Part from Summer Solstice to Winter Solstice, the Sun chart looks like below. The ecliptic angle 23 26' 19'' of the Earth can be seen in this chart.
Origin of Yin Yang
Sun Ecliptic Angel  The Ecliptic is the Sun's apparent path around the Earth.
  It's tilted relative to the Earth's equator.
  The value of obliquity of the Ecliptic is around 23 26' 19'' in year 2000.
By rotating the Sun chart and positioning the Winter Solstice at the bottom, it will look like this . The light color area which indicates more sunlight is called Yang (Sun). The dark color area has less sunlight (more moonlight) and is called Yin (Moon). Yang is like man. Yin is like woman. Yang wouldn't grow without Yin. Yin couldn't give birth without Yang. Yin is born (begins) at Summer Solstice and Yang is born (begins) at Winter Solstice. Therefore one little circle Yin is marked on the Summer Solstice position. Another little circle Yang is marked on the Winter Solstice position. These two little circles look like two fish eyes.
In general, the Yin Yang symbol is a Chinese representation of the entire celestial phenomenon. It contains the cycle of Sun, four seasons, 24-Segment Chi, the foundation of the I-Ching and the Chinese calendar.

The Clash of Civilizations

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 11/18/2013

The Clash of Civilizations is a theory that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world instead if their ideologies. It was proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. He divides the world into 8 major “civilizations”: sinic (China), western, orthodox Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Japanese, Latin American and African. He argues that a "Sino-Islamic connection" is emerging in which China will cooperate more closely with Iran and other states to augment its international position. The only way the West can survive is to get stronger both militarily and economically and ally with civilizations sympathetic to it to fight against the rise of Islamic and sinic countries (i.e China).

Huntington's justification of the clash is:
A West at the peak of its power confronts non-Wests that increasingly have the desire, the will and the resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
And this is due to:
The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. 
As if he is saying, we are good and they hate us for being good. It's as if Bernard Lewis is talking.
At times this hatred goes beyond hostility to specific interests or actions or policies or even countries and becomes a rejection of Western civilization as such, not only what it does but what it is, and the principles and values that it practices and professes. These are indeed seen as innately evil, and those who promote or accept them as the "enemies of God." ~ The Roots of Muslim Rage
 Edward Said issued a response to Huntington's thesis in his 2001 article, "The Clash of Ignorance":
Huntington is an ideologist, someone who wants to make "civilizations" and "identities" into what they are not: shut-down, sealed-off entities that have been purged of the myriad currents and counter currents that animate human history, and that over centuries have made it possible for that history not only to contain wars of religion and imperial conquest but also to be one of exchange, cross-fertilization and sharing
Noam Chomsky has criticized the concept of the clash of civilizations as just being a new justification for the United States "for any atrocities that they wanted to carry out", which was required after the Cold War as the Soviet Union was no longer a viable threat. It is always the same rule West vs. the Rest.
The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it, not a sentimental pretence but an idea: and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to ~ Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Wittgenstein Vs Turing: Logic Contradictions

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 10/26/2013

Turing attended Wittgenstein's lectures on the philosophy of mathematics in Cambridge in 1939 and disagreed strongly with a line of argument that Wittgenstein was pursuing which wanted to allow contradictions to exist in mathematical systems. Wittgenstein argues that he can see why people don't like contradictions outside of mathematics but cannot see what harm they do inside mathematics.

Wittgenstein: Think of the case of the Liar: It is very queer in a way that this should have puzzled anyone — much more extraordinary than you might think... Because the thing works like this: if a man says 'I am lying' we say that it follows that he is not lying, from which it follows that he is lying and so on. Well, so what? You can go on like that until you are black in the face. Why not? It doesn't matter. ...it is just a useless language-game, and why should anyone be excited? 
Turing: What puzzles one is that one usually uses a contradiction as a criterion for having done something wrong. But in this case one cannot find anything done wrong. 
Wittgenstein: Yes — and more: nothing has been done wrong, ... where will the harm come? 
Turing: The real harm will not come in unless there is an application, in which a bridge may fall down or something of that sort…. You cannot be confident about applying your calculus until you know that there are no hidden contradictions in it. 
Wittgenstein: There seems to me an enormous mistake there. ... Suppose I convince [someone] of the paradox of the Liar, and he says, 'I lie, therefore I do not lie, therefore I lie and I do not lie, therefore we have a contradiction, therefore 2x2 = 369.' Well, we should not call this 'multiplication,' that is all... 
Turing: Although you do not know that the bridge will fall if there are no contradictions, yet it is almost certain that if there are contradictions it will go wrong somewhere. 
Wittgenstein: But nothing has ever gone wrong that way yet...

Turing is exasperated and points out that such contradictions inside mathematics will lead to disasters outside mathematics: bridges will fall down. Only if there are no applications will the consequences of contradictions be innocuous. Turing eventually gave up attending these lectures. His despair is understandable. The inclusion of just one contradiction (like 0 = 1) in an axiomatic system allows any statement about the objects in the system to be proved true (and also proved false).

When Bertrand Russel pointed this out in a lecture he was once challenged by a heckler demanding that he show how the questioner could be proved to be the Pope if 2 + 2 = 5. Russel replied immediately that 'if twice 2 is 5, then 4 is 5, subtract 3; then 1 = 2. But you and the Pope are 2; therefore you and the Pope are 1'! A contradictory statement is the ultimate Trojan horse.

Therefore classical logic is not always applicable to real-world situations, no matter how well the parts we've used so far seem to have worked. And we have no theory of when it will be applicable and when it will fail (at least, we didn't in Wittgenstein's time; some might argue that relevance logics give us such a theory now).

Heidegger

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 10/25/2013

"Dasein," the being who understands Being. Existence means that Dasein is potentiality-for-being; it projects its being upon various possibilities. Existence represents thus the phenomenon of the future. Then, as thrownness, Dasein always finds itself already in a certain spiritual and material, historically conditioned environment; in short, in the world, in which the space of possibilities is always somehow limited. This represents the phenomenon of the past as having-been. Finally, as fallenness, Dasein in the world exists in the midst of beings which are both Dasein and not Dasein. This represents the primordial phenomenon of the present. Accordingly, Dasein is not temporal for the mere reason that it exists “in time,” but because its very being is rooted in temporality: the original unity of the future, the past and the present which constitutes authentic temporality.

According to Heidegger, as this sense of being precedes any notions of how or in what manner any particular being or beings exist, it is pre-conceptual, non-propositional, and hence pre-scientific.Thus, in Heidegger's view, fundamental ontology would be an explanation of the understanding preceding any other way of knowing, such as the use of logic, theory, specific ontology or act of reflective thought. Being is to be grasped by means of the phenomenological method. One must direct oneself toward a Dasein  but in such a way that its being is thereby brought out.

Metaphysics provides an answer to the question of the being of beings for contemporary men and women, but skillfully removes from their lives the problem of their own existence. Metaphysics cannot be rejected, canceled or denied, but it can be overcome by demonstrating its forgetfulness of being.

Heidegger talks about "enframing". You place a frame around something and it brings qualities of understanding, revealing aspects of our humanity or aspects of our universe. At one time, when we worked with our hands, technology was a means of enframing through which we discovered things about ourselves. The early making of technological devices to explore scientific reality was a driving force in scientific research.

But enframing can work the other way as well, concealing things from our attention. For example, a friendly chat in the bar is turned into networking. Heidegger claims that what is “horrifying” is not any of technology’s particular harmful effects but “what transposes ... all that is out of its previous essence” — that is to say, what is dangerous is that technology displaces beings from what they originally were, hindering our ability to experience them truly. Modern technology has separated us from direct experience of the world. Heidegger’s alternatives provide ways to clarify the irreducibility of our experience to what we can capture technologically, or through natural science.

Heidegger observes that because of technology, “all distances in time and space are shrinking” and “yet the hasty setting aside of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in a small amount of distance.” In order to experience nearness, we must encounter things in their truth. And no matter how much we believe that science will let us “encounter the actual in its actuality,” science only offers us representations of things. It “only ever encounters that which its manner of representation has previously admitted as a possible object for itself.”

Scientifically speaking, the distance between a house and the tree in front of it can be measured neutrally: it is thirty feet. But in our everyday lives, that distance is not as neutral, not as abstract. Instead, the distance is an aspect of our concern with the tree and the house: the experience of walking, of seeing the tree’s shape grow larger as I come closer, and of the growing separation from the home as I walk away from it. In the scientific account, “distance appears to be first achieved in an opposition” between viewer and object. By becoming indifferent to things as they concern us, by representing both the distance and the object as simple but useful mathematical entities or philosophical ideas, we lose our truest experience of nearness and distance.

Wittgenstein: A Life

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 10/24/2013

“You can't think decently if you're not willing to hurt yourself”

Biography 


Wittgenstein was born in 1889 into one of the wealthiest families in the Austro-Hungarian empire. His father was a major figure in the Austrian iron and steel industry, Ludwig grew up in an environment in which the intellectual and artistic currents of the cultural life of Vienna were dominant. Ludwig, who was the youngest of the family. The children were baptized as Catholics, and raised in an exceptionally intense environment. The family was at the center of Vienna's cultural life; Bruno Walter described the life at the Wittgensteins' palace as an "all-pervading atmosphere of humanity and culture". Music was a part of the daily life of the home.

Psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald argues that Karl (Father) was a harsh perfectionist who lacked empathy, and that Wittgenstein's mother was anxious and insecure, unable to stand up to her husband. Three of the five brothers would later commit suicide.

It was while he was at the Realschule that he decided he had lost his faith in God. He discussed it with Gretl, his other sister, who directed him to Arthur Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation. As a teenager, Wittgenstein adopted Schopenhauer's epistemological idealism. However, after his study of the philosophy of mathematics, he abandoned epistemological idealism for Gottlob Frege's conceptual realism. In later years, Wittgenstein was highly dismissive of Schopenhauer, describing him as an ultimately "shallow" thinker: "Schopenhauer has quite a crude mind... where real depth starts, his comes to an end"

While a student at the Realschule, Wittgenstein was influenced by Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger's 1903 book Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character). Weininger (1880–1903), who was both Jewish and homosexual, argued that the concepts male and female exist only as Platonic forms, and that Jews tend to embody the platonic femininity. Whereas men are basically rational, women operate only at the level of their emotions and sexual organs. Jews, Weininger argued, are similar, saturated with femininity, with no sense of right and wrong, and no soul. The only life worth living is the spiritual one—to live as a woman or a Jew means one has no right to live at all; the choice is genius or death. Weininger committed suicide, shooting himself in 1903, shortly after publishing the book. Many years later, as a professor at Cambridge, Wittgenstein distributed copies of Weininger's book to his bemused academic colleagues. He said that Weininger's arguments were wrong, but that it was the way in which they were wrong that was interesting.

Ludwig at first prepared himself for a career in engineering. He enrolled in and did research at the Engineering Laboratory of the University of Manchester, where he remained until the winter term of 1911. Wittgenstein came upon Bertrand Russell's Principles of Mathematics, published in 1903. He read this with great interest. Through the study of this book he learned of Frege's `new logic'. Wittgenstein became so absorbed in these studies that he decided to give up aeronautical engineering as a career. In the summer of 1911 he visited Frege at the University of Jena to show him some philosophy of mathematics and logic he had written, and to ask whether it was worth pursuing. He wrote:
I was shown into Frege's study. Frege was a small, neat man with a pointed beard who bounced around the room as he talked. He absolutely wiped the floor with me, and I felt very depressed; but at the end he said 'You must come again', so I cheered up.
On Frege's suggestion he went to Cambridge to study with Russell, so on 18 October 1911 Wittgenstein arrived unannounced at Russell's rooms in Trinity College. Russell was having tea with C. K. Ogden, he was soon not only attending Russell's lectures, but dominating them. The lectures were poorly attended. Wittgenstein started following him after lectures back to his rooms to discuss more philosophy, until it was time for the evening meal in Hall. Russell grew irritated; he wrote to his lover Lady Ottoline Morrell:
"My German friend threatens to be an infliction". 
Russell wrote in November 1911 that he had at first thought Wittgenstein might be a crank, but soon decided he was a genius:
 "Some of his early views made the decision difficult. He maintained, for example, at one time that all existential propositions are meaningless. This was in a lecture room, and I invited him to consider the proposition: 'There is no hippopotamus in this room at present.' When he refused to believe this, I looked under all the desks without finding one; but he remained unconvinced." 
Three months after Wittgenstein's arrival Russell told Morrell:
"I love him & feel he will solve the problems I am too old to solve ... He is the young man one hopes for."
 Russell, speaking to Wittgenstein's sister, Hermine, 1912:
We expect the next big step in philosophy to be taken by your brother.
And in his Autobiography, He wrote:
He was perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating. He had a kind of purity which I have never known equalled except by G. E. Moore. I remember taking him once to a meeting of the Aristotelian Society, at which there were various fools whom I treated politely. When we came away he raged and stormed against my moral degradation in not telling these men what fools they were.
At the end of his first term at Trinity, he came to me and said: `Do you think I am an absolute idiot?' I said: `Why do you want to know?' He replied: 'Because if I am I shall become an aeronaut, but if I am not I shall become a philosopher.' I said to him: `My dear fellow, I don't know whether you are an absolute idiot or not, but if you will write me an essay during the vacation upon any philosophical topic that interests you, I will read it and tell you.' He did so, and brought it to me at the beginning of the next term. As soon as I read the first sentence, I became persuaded that he was a man of genius, and assured him that he should on no account become an aeronaut.
He used to come to see me every evening at midnight, and pace up and down the room like a wild beast for three hours in agitated silence. Once I said to him: 'Are you thinking about logic, or about your sins?' 'Both', he replied, and continued his pacing. I did not like to suggest it was time for bed, for it seemed probable both to him and to me that on leaving me he would commit suicide.
 The role-reversal between him and Wittgenstein was such that he wrote in 1916, after Wittgenstein had criticized his own work:
"His criticism, 'tho I don't think he realized it at the time, was an event of first-rate importance in my life, and affected everything I have done since. I saw that he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy." 
Wittgenstein remained for the three terms of 1912 and for the first two terms of 1913. Pinsent wrote in May 1912 that Wittgenstein had just begun to study the history of philosophy:
"He expresses the most naive surprise that all the philosophers he once worshipped in ignorance are after all stupid and dishonest and make disgusting mistakes!"
Karl Popper, another Viennese philosopher, had been invited as the guest speaker. Popper's paper was "Are there philosophical problems?", in which he struck up a position against Wittgenstein's, contending that problems in philosophy are real, not just linguistic puzzles as Wittgenstein argued. Accounts vary as to what happened next, but Wittgenstein apparently started waving a hot poker, demanding that Popper give him an example of a moral rule. Popper offered one—"Not to threaten visiting speakers with pokers"—at which point Russell told Wittgenstein he had misunderstood and Wittgenstein left.

In the autumn of 1913 Wittgenstein went to Norway with a young mathematician friend from Cambridge, David Pinsent. Pinsent's diaries provide valuable insights into Wittgenstein's personality - sensitive, nervous and attuned to the tiniest slight or change in mood from Pinsent. Pinsent was later killed in World War I, and the Tractatus is dedicated to him. In a letter to Russell in 1913:
“My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn’t live much longer.”
deep inside me there's a perpetual seething, like the bottom of a geyser, and I keep hoping that things will come to an eruption once and for all, so that I can turn into a different person.
Perhaps you regard this thinking about myself as a waste of time - but how can I be a logician before I'm a human being? Far the most important thing is to settle accounts with myself!
He later saw this as one of the most productive periods of his life, writing Logik (Notes on Logic), the predecessor of much of the Tractatus. He used to say:
 'Then my mind was on fire!'
While in Norway, Wittgenstein learned Norwegian to converse with the local villagers, and Danish to read the works of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. He remained there until the outbreak of the war in 1914.



Moore asked the university to consider accepting Logik as sufficient for a bachelor's degree, but they refused, saying it wasn't formatted properly: no footnotes, no preface. Wittgenstein was furious, writing to Moore in May 1914:
"If I am not worth your making an exception for me even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to Hell directly; and if I am worth it and you don't do it then—by God—you might go there."
Wittgenstein volunteered for military service in the Austrian army and saw active service at the front, yet managed to find time during this period to do some writing. In March 1916, he was posted to a fighting unit on the front line of the Russian front, as part of the Austrian 7th Army, where his unit was involved in some of the heaviest fighting, defending against the Brusilov Offensive. In action against British troops, he was decorated with the Military Merit with Swords on the Ribbon, and was commended by the army for "His exceptionally courageous behaviour, calmness, sang-froid, and heroism", which "won the total admiration of the troops." In January 1917, he was sent as a member of a howitzer regiment to the Russian front, where he won several more medals for bravery including the Silver Medal for Valour, First Class. In 1918, he was promoted to lieutenant and sent to the Italian front as part of an artillery regiment.

In 1916 Wittgenstein read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov so often that he knew whole passages of it by heart, particularly the speeches of the elder Zossima, who represented for him a powerful Christian ideal, a holy man "who could see directly into the souls of other people".  Russell said he returned from the war a changed man, one with a deeply mystical and ascetic attitude. A series of events around this time left him deeply upset. On 13 August, his uncle Paul died. On 25 October, he learned that Jahoda and Siegel had decided not to publish the Tractatus, and on 27 October, his brother Kurt killed himself, the third of his brothers to commit suicide. It was around this time he received a letter from David Pinsent's mother to say that Pinsent had been killed in a plane crash on 8 May.

He carried the manuscript of his work in his rucksack, and it was with him when he was captured at the end of the war, was made a prisoner, and confined at Monte Cassino in November 1918. He subsequently spent nine months in an Italian prisoner of war camp. He returned to his family in Vienna on 25 August 1919, by all accounts physically and mentally spent. He apparently talked incessantly about suicide, terrifying his sisters and brother Paul. In a letter to Russell:
The best for me, perhaps, would be if I could lie down one evening and not wake up again.
He decided to do two things: to enroll in teacher training college as an elementary school teacher, and to get rid of his fortune.

Dear Russell,
[Cassino, Provincia Caserta, Italy]
13.3.19
Thanks so much for your postcards dated 2°' and 3rd of March. I've had a very bad time, not knowing whether you were dead or alive! I can't write on Logic as I'm not allowed to write more than two post] c[ard]s a week (15 lines each). This letter is an exception, it's posted by an Austrian medical student who goes home tomorrow. I've written a book called "Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung" containing my work of the last six years. I believe I've solved our problems finally. This may sound arrogant but I can't help believing it. I finished the book in August 1918 and two months after was made Prigioniere. I've got the manuscript here with me. I wish I could copy it out for you; but its pretty long and I would have no safe way of sending it to you. In fact you would not understand it without a previous explanation as it's written in quite short remarks. (this of course means that nobody will understand it; although I believe, it's all as clear as crystal. But it upsets all our theory of truth, of classes, of numbers and all the rest.) I will publish it as soon as I get home. Now I'm afraid this won't be "before long". And consequently it will be a long time yet till we can meet. I can hardly imagine seeing you again!
It will be too much! I suppose it would be impossible for you to come and see me here? or perhaps you think it's colossal cheek of me even to think of such a thing. But if you were on the other end of the world and I could come to you I would do it.
Please write to me how you are, remember me to Dr. Whitehead. Is old Johnson still alive? Think of me often!
Ever yours
Ludwig Wittgenstein 

I got a letter from him written from Monte Cassino, saying that a few days after the Armistice, he had been taken prisoner by the Italians, but fortunately with his manuscript. It appears he had written a book in the trenches, and wished me to read it. He was the kind of man who would never have noticed such small matters as bursting shells when he was thinking about logic. ... It was the book which was subsequently published under the title Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. ~ Bertrand Russell in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1968) Ch. 9 : Russia, p. 330
The story of his repeated frustrations in trying to get his manuscript published at the end of the war marks one among the many unhappy chapters in his life. Wittgenstein desperately and repeatedly sought a publisher for his book and was turned down by five publishers! It narrowly missed not being published at all. Russell had agreed to write an introduction to explain why it was important, because it was otherwise unlikely to have been published: it was difficult if not impossible to understand, and Wittgenstein was unknown in philosophy. It finally appeared in 1922 in English. But it was not understood at all by Frege, and fundamentally misunderstood by Russell. In a letter written to Russell from the prison camp to which Wittgenstein was confined at the end of the World War I, there occurs the following passage:
Now I'm afraid you haven't really got hold of my main contention, to which the whole business of logical propositions is only a corollary. The main point is the theory of what can be expressed by propositionls i.e. by language (and, which comes to the same, what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by propositions, but only shown; which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy. I also sent my M.S. to Frege. He wrote me a week ago and I gather that he doesn't understand a word of it all. So my only hope is to see you soon and explain all to you, for it is VERY hard not to be understood by a single soul!
After his military service during the First World War, he decided to become an elementary school teacher. He attended teacher training college in the Kundmanngasse in Vienna in September 1919, and in 1920 was given his first job as a teacher in Trattenbach, a village of just a few hundred inhabitants about 90 km southwest of Vienna in Lower Austria. It appears that he did not have a high opinion of the villagers. Writing to Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein said:
"I am still at exile, surrounded, as ever, by odiousness and baseness. I know that human beings on the average are not worth much anywhere, but here they are much more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere". 
A year later, He wrote to Russell again saying:
"I am now in another hole, though I have to say, it is no better than the old one. Living with human beings is hard!"
There was one boy in particular, Karl Gruber, from an impoverished family with six children, whom Wittgenstein wanted to adopt. The two studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics together from four to seven in the evening, then dined in Wittgenstein's room. He proposed the adoption arrangement to Karl's parents, offering to send the boy to the city and finance his education. The boys' mother agreed, but the father said no and called Wittgenstein "ein verrückter Kerl" ("a crazy fellow").

Wittgenstein was reportedly seen as a tyrant by the slower students, boxing ears and pulling hair. Wittgenstein was a very nervous teacher. He would break out in a sweat, rub his chin a lot, pull his hair, and bite into a crumpled handkerchief. A student from Cambridge, Frank P. Ramsey, arrived in Austria to visit him on 17 September 1923 to discuss a review of the Tractatus he had agreed to write for Mind. Ramsey told John Maynard Keynes back in Cambridge that Wittgenstein was refusing all financial help from his family, and was even returning Christmas presents they sent him, because he did not want to have any money he had not earned himself.

Josef Haidbauer was one of Wittgenstein's pupils, 11 years old and by all accounts a weak child and a slow learner. His father had died, and his mother worked locally as a maid for a farmer named Piribauer. Piribauer himself had a daughter, Hermine, in Wittgenstein's class; Wittgenstein had reportedly pulled her so hard by the ears and hair that her ears had bled, and some of her hair had fallen out. During a lesson in April 1926 Wittgenstein hit Haidbauer two or three times on the head, and the boy collapsed unconscious. Wittgenstein sent the class home, carried Haidbauer to the headmaster's office, then quickly left the building. He bumped into Herr Piribauer on the way out, who had arrived at the school after the children alerted him. Piribauer said that when he met Wittgenstein in the hall that day: "I called him all the names under the sun. I told him he wasn't a teacher, he was an animal trainer! And that I was going to fetch the police right away!". Piribauer tried to have Wittgenstein arrested, but the one-man police station was empty when he went there, and the next day he was told Wittgenstein had disappeared. On 28 April, Wittgenstein handed in his resignation to Wilhelm Kundt, a local school inspector. He returned to Vienna, where he took a job as an assistant gardener in the Brothers of Mercy monastery in Hütteldorf. Wittgenstein was summoned to appear before the district court in Gloggnitz on 17 May 1926. Waugh writes that he lied to the court about his use of physical punishment against the children. The judge suspected he was mentally ill, and ordered an adjournment for psychiatric reports. Wittgenstein's family was one of the wealthiest in Europe at the time, and Waugh writes that they may have managed to cover things up.

The Tractatus was now the subject of much debate amongst philosophers, and Wittgenstein was a figure of increasing international fame. In particular, a discussion group of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians, known as the Vienna Circle, had built up largely as a result of the inspiration they had been given by reading the Tractatus. From 1926, with the members of the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein would take part in many discussions. However, during these discussions, it soon became evident that Wittgenstein held a different attitude towards philosophy than the members of the Circle whom his work had inspired. For example, during meetings of the Vienna Circle, he would express his disagreement with the group's misreading of his work by turning his back to them and reading poetry aloud.

Rudolf Carnap said about him at that time:
"His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view on some specific problem, we often felt the internal struggle that occurred in him at that very moment, a struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his most expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answers came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation"
Ten years later, Wittgenstein was living in Norway, and went through a period of wanting to make confessions to his friends about various issues, one of which was his use of violence against the children in Austria. One of the friends he confessed to, Fania Pascal, recalled the confession as: 
"During the short period when he was teaching at a village school in Austria, he hit a little girl in his class and hurt her (my memory is, without details, of a physically violent act). When she ran to the headmaster to complain, Wittgenstein denied that he had done it." 
In the same year that he made this confession to friends, he also travelled to Otterthal and appeared without warning at the homes of the children he had hurt. He visited at least four of them, asking for their forgiveness. In 1937 he wrote in a notebook:
Last year with God's help I pulled myself together and made a confession. This brought me into more settled waters, into a better relation with people, and to a greater seriousness. But now it is as though I had spent all that, and I am not far from where I was before. I am cowardly beyond measure. If I do not correct this, I shall again drift entirely into those waters through which I was moving then.
In 1926, Wittgenstein was again working as a gardener for a number of months, this time at the monastery of Hütteldorf, where he had also enquired about becoming a monk. His sister, Margaret, invited him to help with the design of her new townhouse in Vienna's Kundmanngasse. Wittgenstein, his friend Paul Engelmann, and a team of architects developed a spare modernist house. In particular, Wittgenstein focused on the windows, doors, and radiators, demanding that every detail be exactly as he specified. When the house was nearly finished Wittgenstein had an entire ceiling raised 30mm so that the room had the exact proportions he wanted.

At the urging of Ramsey and others, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929. Keynes wrote in a letter to his wife:
"Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5.15 train." 
Despite this fame, he could not initially work at Cambridge as he did not have a degree, so he applied as an advanced undergraduate. Russell noted that his previous residency was sufficient for a PhD, and urged him to offer the Tractatus as his thesis. It was examined in 1929 by Russell and Moore; at the end of the thesis defence, Wittgenstein clapped the two examiners on the shoulder and said,
"Don't worry, I know you'll never understand it." 
Moore wrote in the examiner's report:
"I myself consider that this is a work of genius; but, even if I am completely mistaken and it is nothing of the sort, it is well above the standard required for the Ph.D. degree."
Wittgenstein was appointed as a lecturer and was made a fellow of Trinity College.

In the Cambridge years, the philosopher Karl Britton said:
Wittgenstein spoke without notes but knew very well what he wanted to discuss and what he wanted to "put across," though sometimes he seemed to change his mind on some point while he was speaking . . . . But the most characteristic of all his attitudes was a very quiet, very intense stare-suddenly adopted and leading to a slow deliberate utterance of some new point. Very often he got thoroughly "stuck": appealed in vain to his hearers to help him out: he would walk about in despair murmuring: "I'm a fool, I'm a fool." And such was the difficulty of the topics he discussed, that all this struggle did not seem to us to be in the least excessive.
After the Anschluss, his brother Paul left almost immediately for England, and later the US. The Nazis discovered his relationship with Hilde Schania, a brewer's daughter with whom he had had two children but whom he had never married, though he did later. Because she was not a Jew, he was served with a summons for Rassenschande (racial defilement). He told no one he was leaving the country, except for Hilde who agreed to follow him. Wittgenstein began to investigate acquiring British or Irish citizenship with the help of Keynes, and apparently had to confess to his friends in England that he had earlier misrepresented himself to them as having just one Jewish grandparent, when in fact he had three.

From 1936 to 1937, Wittgenstein lived again in Norway,where he worked on the Philosophical Investigations. After G. E. Moore resigned the chair in philosophy in 1939, Wittgenstein was elected, and acquired British citizenship soon afterwards. He grew angry when any of his students wanted to become professional philosophers. In September 1941 he asked John Ryle, the brother of the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, if he could get a manual job at Guy's Hospital in London. John Ryle was professor of medicine at Cambridge and had been involved in helping Guy's prepare for the Blitz. Wittgenstein told Ryle he would die slowly if left at Cambridge, and he would rather die quickly. He started working at Guy's shortly afterwards as a dispensary porter, meaning that he delivered drugs from the pharmacy to the wards. He resigned the professorship at Cambridge in 1947 to concentrate on his writing, and in 1947 and 1948 travelled to Ireland where he began the manuscript volume MS 137, then he went to USA. He returned to London, where he was diagnosed with an inoperable prostate cancer, which had spread to his bone marrow.
"I won't say 'See you tomorrow' because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that." (1949)
He spent the next two months in Vienna, where his sister Hermine died on 11 February 1950; he went to see her every day, but she was hardly able to speak or recognize him. He wrote:
"Great loss for me and all of us, greater than I would have thought." 
On 27 November he moved into "Storey's End", at 76 Storey's Way, the home of his doctor, Edward Bevan, and his wife Joan; he had told them he did not want to die in a hospital, so they said he could spend his last days in their home instead. Joan at first was afraid of Wittgenstein, but they soon became good friends.

By the beginning of 1951, it was clear that he had little time left. He wrote a new will in Oxford on 29 January, naming Rhees as his executor, and Anscombe and von Wright his literary administrators, and wrote to Norman Malcolm that month to say:
"My mind's completely dead. This isn't a complaint, for I don't really suffer from it. I know that life must have an end once and that mental life can cease before the rest does."
In February he returned to the Bevans' home to work on MS 175 and MS 176. These and other manuscripts were later published as Remarks on Colour and On Certainty. It was his 62nd birthday on 26 April. He went for a walk the next afternoon, and wrote his last entry that day, 27 April. That evening, he became very ill; when his doctor told him he might live only a few days, he reportedly replied, "Good!" Joan stayed with him throughout that night, and just before losing consciousness for the last time on 28 April, he told her:
"Tell them I've had a wonderful life"
Philosophical Investigations was published in two parts in 1953. Most of Part I was ready for printing in 1946, but Wittgenstein withdrew the manuscript from his publisher. The shorter Part II was added by his editors, Elizabeth Anscombe and Rush Rhees.

Bertrand Russell in My Philosophical Development, Wrote of his later philosophy:
The later Wittgenstein, on the contrary, seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary. I do not for one moment believe that the doctrine which has these lazy consequences is true. I realize, however, that I have an overpoweringly strong bias against it, for, if it is true, philosophy is, at best, a slight help to lexicographers, and at worst, an idle tea-table amusement

Works


Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


http://techrig.blogspot.com/2013/10/tractatus-logico-philosophicus.html
For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”
“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough
An entire mythology is stored within our language.
Culture and Value
“When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.” 
Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.
Ambition is the death of thought.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.
Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?

Notebooks 1914-1916
Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.
What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about.
What do I know about God and the purpose of life?I know that this world exists.That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.That life is the world.That my will penetrates the world.That my will is good or evil.Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.To pray is to think about the meaning of life.
To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.
Comparing Quotes
"Hell is other people" ~ No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre 
"Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person" ~ Tennessee Williams 
"(On Satre) Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself" ~ Wittgenstein