Association of Austrian Studies Modern Austrian Literature

Association of Austrian Studies
Karl Kraus, Ludwig Wittgenstein and "Poststructual" Paradigms of Textual Understanding

Author(s): Jay F. Bodine
Source: Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 22, No. 3/4, Special Turn-Of-The-Century Issue
(1989), pp. 143-185
Published by: Association of Austrian Studies
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Karl Kraus, Ludwig Wittgenstein
and "Poststructual" Paradigms
of Textual Understanding
Jay F. Bodine
One of Ludwig Wittgenstein's greatest later concerns was that of being

misunderstood;1 and, indeed, one aspect of his reputation has been precisely
the difficulty in understanding him. Karl Kraus had similar concerns, and
similarly with the reputation and historical reception of Karl Kraus the
greatest problem has been the difficulty of correctly understanding him.
Dealing with the two men's language views in the same context entails juxta
posing an interpretation of their thought, a process which compounds the
need for an adequate understanding. Thus one of the more important en
deavors of this study will be to treat in a concluding discussion the necessity
of achieving an adequate understanding-and to couch the discussion within
the context of the present-day discussions in hermeneutics, poststmcturalism,
and "paradigmatic" history of science.
The present analysis makes no claim to present a complete understand
ing of either man's oeuvre, nor to suggest that an understanding of Kraus is
sufficient for an understanding of Wittgenstein, even if it provides a necessary
aspect. Gearly Wittgenstein treats philosophical questions well,beyond the
interests and concerns of Kraus. And ultimately a definitive understanding of
a thinker's texts is an impossibility. Meaning must ultimately be viewed as
being indeterminate. But that does not allow indiscriminate nor justify in
adequate interpretation of another's thoughts.
A further reservation concerning the present analysis is that it is only
preliminary. A much more thorough review and juxtaposition of the two
men's views needs to be undertaken; i.e., a more elaborate analysis for an
audience of academic philosophers is needed, taking particularly Wittgen
stein's more recently published Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology
into consideration. However, the present formulation can perhaps already
Modern Austrian Literature, Volume 22, Nos. 3/4,1989 143
144 Jay F. Bodine
alert interested parties to the possibility of achieving a more adequate under

standing of each man and to the necessity of doing so.
This investigation as it now stands endeavors to add an important as
pect to the understanding of Kraus and Wittgenstein and to do so by juxta
posing several facets of the two men's thinking on language. Each man
realized that his particular conception of language constituted a certain
"Sehweise"; that his way of looking at his world was tied to language, and
that it was a way different from that of most contemporaries. Actually one of
their similarities, whose philosophical principles Wittgenstein enlarged upon,
is that of polysemous meaning—i.e..incorporating manifold aspects in the de
scription or exposition of a problem.2 Recognizing the manifold, often multi
leveled aspects of a linguistic or artistic expression can be one of the most
problematical obligations for achieving an adequate understanding of the two.
Precisely the non-recognition of some crucial aspects in Kraus's and Wittgen
stein's thought has resulted in an incomplete, and in some regards, inaccurate
understanding of their work.
It will be seen that both men's conceptualizations of language and their
respective praxis exemplify the epistemology and a type of poststructuralist
or "deconstructive" analysis advocated by Manfred Frank primarily in Was ist
Neostrukturalismus (Frankfurt, 1984). Also recognizing the fact that their
"Sehweisen" with their conceptions of language constitute an unexpected
"paradigm" will help to fathom the problematical nature of perceiving their
particular thought complexes.
In the juxtaposition of the two men's views on language, it will be seen
that they have a certain continuity in their Viennese origins and a parallel in
the overall structure of their respective world conceptualizations. The com
mon context of the two men's views results essentially in the same "para
digm" of language conception, with the two men merely engaged in two
different endeavors within that paradigm. Elsewhere I have argued that Kraus
was central to a new Viennese paradigm of "truthful literary and artistic ex
pression"-with his literary endeavors paralleling the endeavors of others in
art, architecture, and music, namely, the endeavors of Oskar Kokoschka,
Adolf Loos and Arnold Schönberg, among others.3 In contrast to a previous
paradigm of Austrian Impressionism, the practitioners of the new paradigm of
an Austrian Expressionism strove in their various artistic creations to become
more truthful in two ways: they attempted 1) to convey with a more truth
ful, i.e., unornamented, expression; 2) to engage in more truthful social per
ception. Wittgenstein can very appropriately be viewed as coming forth out of
this "more truthful," "expressionistic" paradigm and as providing a philo
sophical framework within which can be grounded particularly the "more
Kram and Wittgenstein 145
truthful" world view ("Sehweise") achieved through the Krausian conceptua

lization and critique of language. Thomas Kuhn's analysis of paradigms and
particularly of their sociological aspects and of the difficulty in grasping a
new or different paradigm is helpful for understanding the historical recep
tion of the Austrian expressionistic paradigm and in particular the reception
of Kraus and Wittgenstein in the Vienna of their time and since.
What is the extent and interrelationship of the two men? The younger
philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1885-1951), had a definite, although later
a perhaps ambivalent appreciation for the older writer, cultural and literary
critic, and "Sprachkritiker," Karl Kraus (1874-1936). Wittgenstein knew and
admired Kraus generally, followed Kraus's general advice in seeking out Lud
wig von Ficker for dispersing Wittgenstein's share of his family fortune (it was
donated to the poets Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke); he had Kraus's
literary journal Die Fackel sent to him at least while in Norway, if not also
while abroad elsewhere, and Wittgenstein wanted to present Kraus with a
copy of the Tractatus logico-philosophicus in the hope that Kraus would con
cur with his conception of language.4 Among the various major influences in
his life and thinking Wittgenstein explicitly names Kraus: "Ich glaube, ich
habe nie eine Gedankenbewegung erfunden, sondern sie wurde mir immer von
jemand anderem gegeben. Ich habe sie nur sogleich leidenschaftlich zu mei
nem Klärungswerk aufgegriffen. So haben mich Boltzmann, Hertz, Schopen
hauer, Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos, Weininger, Spengler, Sraffa beeinflußt."5
However, Wittgenstein also said of Kraus: "Genie ist das Talent, worin der
Charakter sich ausspricht. Darum, möchte ich sagen, hatte Kraus Talent, ein
außerordentliches Talent, aber nicht Genie. Es gibt freilich Genieblitze, bei
denen man dann, trotz des großen Talenteinsatzes, das Talent nicht merkt."6
To whatever extent the last sentence might attenuate the preceding
judgment, one should also keep in mind the context of Wittgenstein's evalua
tion. In the fust place, as Werner Kraft has pointed out,7 these remarks were
most likely not meant for publication and are provisional on the part of Witt
genstein; and secondly, Wittgenstein said of himself, for example, "Das jü
dische Tlenie' ist nur ein Heiliger. Der größte jüdische Denker ist nur ein
Talent (Ich z.B.)."8 Thus on at least this one occasion when he applied the
concept to himself, there is an attenuation of how we should understand his
use of "Talent"; thirdly, another differentiation between "Talent" and
"Greatness" allows for an appropriate evaluative perspective and a proper
focus on the differences in the two men's endeavors. Wittgenstein wrote:
"The less a person knows and understands himself, the less great he is, no
matter how great his talent may be. Hence our scientists are not great. Hence
Freud, Spengler, Kraus, Einstein are not great."9 Kraus did not analyze
146 Jay F. Bodine
philosophically or even systematically the metaphysical or epistemological

justification for his work; he did not, for instance, develop the concept of
language games and their relationship to forms of life, nor the problematical
principles involved in the confrontation of, or shifting from, one language
game (or world view) to another. Kraus merely analyzed the games being
played in his "native" language to greater extent than anyone before or since.
By following the parallels in understanding the two men through Wittgen
stein's stages represented first in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus (TR) and
then later in the Philosophical Investigations (PI) and On Certainty (OC), we
will be able to conclude that Kraus with his more pragmatically engendered
language conceptualization was engaging in a critique of language use which
amounted to a critique of language users or a meta-ideological critique,10
while Wittgenstein, on the other hand, provides along with his own philo
sophical concerns—in a Krausian context-the framework or philosophical
background for, or simply an overview including, what Kraus does. Wittgen
stein "knows and understands himself' philosophically; he provides a philo
sophical, meta-linguistic analysis of the functioning and interaction of lan
guage games-and within that philosophical, meta-linguistic analysis, among
other things, Kraus's language conceptualization and meta-ideological critique
also find a place and justification.
II
Until the beginning of the 1970s the general understanding of Kraus's

conception of language was that Kraus believed in a "eine prästabilierte Har
monie" between language and the world. This view went back to Leopold
Liegler's interpretation in the first monograph on Kraus (1920). However,
Liegler's original discussion of the matter concerned not Kraus's general con
ception of language but rather his precise punning or his almost innumerable
formulations with incisive manifold meaning.
In bringing together in their linguistic association with one formulation
various allegorical meanings from rather disparate spheres of endeavor, Kraus
drew attention to seemingly metaphysical reflections among the associated
meanings and between them and their linguistic form. One Krausian aphorism
has become exemplary for his achieving polysemous ramifications11 : "Je
größer der Stiefel, desto größer der Absatz" (W 3, 155);12 "Stiefel" has the
meanings of "boot," "a large measure of alcoholic drink" and "routine non
sense"-while "Absatz" can be translated with "heel," "paragraph" and "sale
or disposal of goods." Thus the topic concerns not only the mercantile dis
posal of big boots with large crushing heels but also the marketing of exten
sive prose replete with drunken and/or ever-repeated inanities. With such
Kraus and Wittgensteeiti 147
pithy, yet manifold artistic meaning—illustrating also the problems in under

standing and translating Kraus-it is as if the associations between the forms
and meanings, and among the disparate meanings, were of a natural or almost
metaphysical relationship. Kraus the artist brought forth perhaps tens of
thousands of such formulations-cross sections of his circa 22,000-page
oeuvre have been analyzed to show such samples of word play at the rate of
five to twelve per page.13 But they are not an indication of supposedly believ
ing that language reflected metaphysical reality. Rather Kraus used them,
among other reasons, for critical effect, to reduce the thoughts through their
linguistic forms to their often absurd but, nevertheless, basic content. The
word play was often part of his critique of language use and of language
users—always calling attention to the mentality, motivations, intentions, and
value systems behind particular instances of language use.
Overextending Ldegler's interpretation, however, almost every commen
tator until the last decade and a half considered Kraus ultimately to be equat
ing language with reality. Almost all interpreters of Kraus, including Allan
Janik and Steven Toulmin in Wittgenstein's Vienna, recognized the impor
tance of a few key terms for Kraus, primarily, "Geist" and "Phantasie," and
then "Wort" and "Wesen." Kraus was generally understood, and correctly so,
to be using "Geist" (the spirit or intellect) as the human faculty that deals
with the "Wort" (word or linguistic forms) and "Phantasie" (imagination) as
the faculty dealing with recognition of the "Wesen" (essences) in reality. In
his discussion of language Kraus also elaborated upon the importance of the
"Satz" (sentence and also proposition), and the setting ("setzen") of language
elements in a particular form ("Satz") was the function of "Geist." The
following would then be a pictorial representation of the earlier misinterpre
tation of Kraus's language conception:
GEIST PHANTASIE
(sets Worte or forms into (envisages, imagines refer

a Satz-necessary for ents to determine their
conveying meaning) essences)
WORT ===== WESEN
By the end of the 1960s some commentators were beginning to recog

nize that Kraus's extensive but unsystematically expressed language views did
not entail a linguistic realism. As early as 1969, for instance, one commenta
tor wrote: "Nie war Kraus, was die Romantiker doch insgesamt waren (sic):
148 Jay A. Bodine
Sprachmagier, und undenkbar wäre es, daß er je versucht haben könnte,

durch suggestives Nennen ("Triffst du nur das Zauberwort") die Welt zu be
schwören. Das aber hätte doch seine poetische Methode sein müssen, hätte er
wirklich, wie das von links und rechts vertreten wird, Sprache und Sache
gleichgesetzt."14 And in the 1970s three independently undertaken studies of
Kraus's language views showed Kraus to be conceptualizing language entirely
differently than earlier believed and doing something else with his critique of
language use. A portion of my own work, which included a more thorough
literary analysis of Kraus's key terms, appeared in 1975; a book-length
analysis emphasizing the contexts in which Kraus's innumerable statements
concerning language have to be understood appeared in 1976-Josef Quack's
Bemerkungen zum Sprachverständnis von Karl Kraus; and in 1979 appeared a
book that did not come to terms with his conceptualization of language but
did demonstrate that Kraus's "Sprachkritik" was clearly an ideological cri
tique of language use and incongruent with the earlier consensus on his con
ceptualization of language, namely, Hannelore Ederer's Die literarische Mime
sis entfremdeter Sprache. Zur sprachkritischen Literatur von Heinrich Heine
bis Karl Kraus. (I go further to call Kraus's "Sprachkritik" not merely an
ideological, but, basing it upon Herbert Marcuse's terminology when he is also
discussing a Krausian context, actually a meta-ideological critique.)15
I have found it helpful elsewhere to use a rough pictorial sketch for the
new and more accurate understanding of how Kraus conceives of language
interacting with human reality and how in the process of his critique of lan
guage use, both the social validity of utterances can be verified and his unique
"Sehweise" with a dialectical critique of ideology (a meta-ideology) results.16
'WESEN-Meaning, Conceptualization
(Vorstellung, Begriff, Signified)
(PHANTASIE)
Referent
-Form
(image acoustique,
Signifier)
The individual comparing of language content with one's own interpersonal

reality, which resulted in a meta-ideological critique with Kraus, is one of the
Kraus and Wittgenstein 149
most crucial of the aspects in Kraus's "Sehweise" ("aspects" understood in

Wittgenstein's sense from the second part of the Philosophical Investigations).
This aspect is absolutely necessary to understand Kraus adequately in gene
ral and to understand in particular how his views and practice find a place
and justification in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. The sketch is a variation
of the standard semiotic triangle.17
These schematics show among other things the contrast both with the
supposed mystic realism in the earlier inadequate or even mis-representation
of Kraus and with the "formalistic realism" of Wittgenstein's earlier account
of meaning in the Tractatus. The aspects Kraus dwells upon are those in all
capital letters. To be sure, Kraus does not furnish a linguistic, much less philo
sophical analysis of meaning, but still his understanding of language is analo
gous to that of a generally accepted one in modern linguistics and—some
thing which is more important in the context of the additional deconstruc
tive questions involved in this study-Kraus's understanding of language does
not entail certain characteristics from the metaphysical tradition culminating
in Husserl, which the deconstruction of Derrida condemns.
"Geist" and "Phantasie" are, of course, not general linguistic terms but
designate for Kraus the two primary faculties of human thinking, and he dis
cusses them continually, especially as they are involved in language use and
need emphasis placed upon them. "Geist" has to do with reason or the power
of mental association; "Phantasie" with feeling, natural drives, and the power
of imagination or (nonverbal) conceptualization. The highest value or human
fulfillment is to be found in the "natural" development and cooperative en
gagement of these two faculties, "Geist" and "Phantasie," such as in an indi
vidual's youth or at one's Ursprung. "Ursprung" is another key Krausian con
cept, referring to an original interaction and cooperative development of
"Geist" and "Phantasie—original, as when one projected meaning upon
encountering linguistic form combinations for the first time in one's youth.
As far as language is concerned, "Geist" is involved primarily with the
various levels of linguistic form and in mentally associating the forms in a
particular language with their respective conceptualizations; "Geist" thus
deals with the language system, the "langue," and sets appropriate forms to
gether in the basic formal unit of language, namely, the "Satz" (sentence and
proposition). The individual conceptualizations of reality are brought forth
by the faculty of "Phantasie." Thus in language use, "Geist" deals primarily
with linguistic form, "Phantasie" with meaning, i.e. immediate (pre- or non
verbal) "envisaging," conceptualizations or "Vorstellungen" (see e.g. "das
Vorstellungsleben eines Tages der Kindheit," W 3,175-176).
In interpreting the second pair of Krausian key words, "Wort" and
150 Jay F. Bodine
"Wesen," one of the breakthroughs in arriving at a more adequate under

standing of Kraus was achieved. "Wort" can be used to refer to the word or
linguistic form; however, "Wesen" has been shown to refer for Kraus not to
the quintessence of a referent (which would constitute a naively realistic con
ception of language) but rather to the individual's specific conceptualization.
Thus Kraus refers to linguistic forms with "Wort" and to linguistic conceptu
alizations with "Wesen." But form and conceptualization for Kraus-in the
jargon of Saussureian linguistics, signified and signifier-are not automatically
mentally associated with each other in each utterance. That association has to
be assiduously pursued: "Wort und Wesen-das ist die einzige Verbindung, die
ich je im Leben angestrebt habe" (W 3,431). Kraus avers he never strove after
interest-laden, privately motivated connections; he only strove after the con
nection between word and conceptualized essence in linguistic utterances.
And then he does not say that he ever fully achieved such a connection, only
that he always strove for it. In fact, for Kraus that striving amounts to the in
dividual's task in each instance of language use. A final Krausian key word to
be mentioned, Zweifel or doubt, is the expression of that striving or the
means of achieving the closest possible association between form and con
cept, which will likely vary with each repeated usage. Doubting or calling into
question the work of "Geist" and of "Phantasie" not only, almost as a by
product, evokes greater individual human development (thus approximating
one's "Ursprung" or original employment of "Geist" and "Phantasie"), but
doubting also accomplishes in each respective usage the closest possible
mental association between "Wort und Wesen," form and concept. Stop call
ing the connection into question, and the association between linguistic form
and conceptual meaning becomes attenuated. And, when considered care
fully, the individual meaning generated in a later reading involves not the
reproduction of an earlier determinate meaning but rather a repetition,
similar to the author's, of a "creativity of sense projection" ("Kreativität des
Sinnentwurfs"; see below, note 55). An "original" understanding in Kraus's
sense would be an "originally creating, individual sense projection."
Kraus doubts and investigates the work of "Geist" in linguistic utter
ances by checking the linguistic form to determine the degree of mental care
and alertness used to generate the formal aspects of the utterances. Then
Kraus investigates, i.e.^ doubts or calls into question, the work of the indi
vidual "Phantasie." This second check, the one on the "Phantasie," is for
Kraus the more important test-questioning for oneself whether the speaker
has fully conceptualized and verified the actual total content of his or her
utterance. Thus in Kraus's critique of language-although he was extremely
particular about form-Kraus again and again makes the ultimate critique that
of checking the conceptualizations behind the utterances, the calling into

question of the conceptualization or "Phantasie-Arbeit." "Zweifel" calls for
individually comparing what was said with the socio-economic, political and
aesthetic realities. Determining the context and background, including the
private interests and motivation behind an utterance, will indicate whether
the utterance in its generation was, and in its reception is, conceptualized to
the fullest extent possible and concomitantly forthright, i.e. socially or
ethically valid.
It is important to recognize that the reality for whose content Kraus is
checking with his critique of language is not a noumenal, metaphysical reality
or "das Ding an sich," but rather respective instances of reality in the realm
of socio-economic, political, and aesthetic endeavor-the interhuman reality
we deal with. Particularly his "doubting" of the efficacy of individual "Phan
tasie" and "Geist," entailing repeated "original" understanding, as well as the
fact that he never "consummates" a connection between "Wort" and "We
sen" is all indicative of the fact that Kraus is not dealing with meaning as
consisting of "super concepts" or of "form as presence."18 The more ade
quate (or definitive) investigations of the 1970s into Kraus's views cm lan
guage have shown that for Kraus meaning is not determined by the being of
the referent, nor that it depends for its being upon the "'beseelen' of a trans
cendental subjectivity" (Henry Staten, Wittgenstein and Derrida [Lincoln and
London, 1984], pp. 15 and 40). These are important considerations when
taking into account a deconstructive attitude toward language, for Kraus does
"deconstruct" the socio-political language he encounters and his language
views do coincide to this extent with poststructuralism, yet he will also go a
different path than Derrida's type of deconstruction and include an individual
consciousness ascertaining meaning.
As was touched upon earlier, to a great extent one must speak of a
different mode of expression in Kraus's writings. Maintaining that they de
tract from the truth content, Kraus eliminates ornamentation and decoration
from his literary production, and then he places the everyday discourse into a
different context in order for it to generate "original" meaning and to reveal
its truth content: "Meine Sprache ist die Allerweltshure, die ich zur Jungfrau
mache" (W 3, 293). He obtains virginal meaning from the whore of the whole
earth, language, by placing his own utterances and those he encounters from
the realm of everyday life, the press, and in others' artistic endeavors into the
context of his journal Die Fackel or into the context of his lecture perform
ances. In the new context the utterance is alienated (as later in Brecht) and
the reader or listener is literally constrained to concentrate upon and to
question the validity of the utterance; if one is going to deal with it at all, one
152 Jay F. Bodine
has to compare the utterance with the interhuman, socio-political realities.

Thus, more than anything Kraus is questioning the genuineness in the
utterance, i.e. particularly the forthrightness in motivation behind it within
the socio-economic, political and aesthetic context. In so doing he does not
have to preach ethics or a particular moral stance per se, but rather allows the
ethical implications (the private, selfish interests) to become evident almost as
a by-product. This self-evident nature of the ethical concerns, disclosed when
the background and motivation of utterances are questioned, is also the ex
planation behind his categorical ethical posture. Often he seems to be speak
ing ex cathedra because, as far as he is concerned, the truly ethical posture to
be taken in the matter should be self-evident.19
In sum, Kraus's critique of language and literature is ultimately a type
of verification procedure; it checks for the truth content of an expression in
the social context. Through a dialectical process in which with one's own
"original" sense projection one compares the linguistic expression with one's
own perception of reality, one arrives at an individual, asymptotical approxi
mation of socio-political and aesthetic truth. Indirectly, as a by-product of
the analysis,,the ethical concerns affected by private motivation and evident
in interest-laden,. (pseudo-)aesthetic acts of expression ~an "show them
selves." His having pointed out the motivation and private interests in the dis
course and aesthetic enterprises of his world (i.e. of the interhuman reality he
encountered) is what makes Kraus even today for many a Marxist and Capi
talist, for many a Liberal and Conservative, Christian and Jew, a persona non
grata.
Ill
To someone familiar with Kraus's conception of language and with the

earlier misinterpretation of the same, it is understandable that Wittgenstein
would have been interested in Kraus's reaction to the Tractatus. While the
theory of language in Kraus and the early Wittgenstein is indeed not one of a
naive realism, there does at first perusal seem to be in Kraus and there most
certainly exists in the Tractatus the attempt to show a close isomorphic
relationship between language and the world, i.e. between the form of lan
guage and the form of the world. The early Wittgenstein, namely, asserts an
isomorphism between, on the one hand, the form of simple objects (as de
termined by their substance or being), atomic facts and the world, and on the
other hand, signs, names, logic of syntax, and elementary propositions [die
durch die Substanz bestimmte Form der Gegenstände, Sachverhalte, Tat
sachen, Welt; Zeichen, Namen, Logik der Syntax, Satz], Kraus does not
furnish a philosophic treatise on the relationship between language and the
Kraus and Wittgenstein 15 3
world, but on numerous occasions he speaks of recognizing his world pri

marily through its linguistic designations, that is, when they are assembled
together in carefully constructed sentences or propositions: Kraus's "general
principles" are then always taking every thing by its word (for never did the
word fail to help him; W 7, 124) and giving great care to sentences: "Es wird
kaum je einen Autor gegeben haben, dem Stofflicheres, Wirklicheres, Zeit
licheres abgenommen werden konnte als dem, der meine Schriften geschrie
ben hat, und doch habe ich mich mein Lebtag um nichts anderes als um den
Satz geschoren, darauf vertrauend, daß ihm schon das Wahre über die Mensch
heit, über ihre Kriege und Revolutionen, über ihre Christen und Juden, ein
fallen wird" (W 2,341).
Kraus himself endeavors to set up a truth relationship between his
language and his world; in Wittgenstein's words, "Der Satz teilt uns eine
Sachlage mit, also muß er wesentlich mit der Sachlage zusammenhängen. /
Und der Zusammenhang ist eben, daß er ihr logisches Bild ist" (Tr. 4.03).20
And then Kraus engages in a critique of language use to determine to what
extent other speakers in their discourse truthfully, construe their social
realities. Truthful language will reflect truthful realities, and truthful language
is an individual concern. Kraus's "Sprachkritik" and "correct" speaking
entails individually comparing what is said with reality. In Wittgenstein's
"system," after he found the logical picture to be based upon the logical form
of reality's essence, it is also a matter of comparing that reality with the
logical form of the language: "Um zu erkennen, ob das Bild wahr oder falsch
ist, müssen wir es mit der Wirklichkeit vergleichen" (2.223),21 and "Die
Wirklichkeit wird mit dem Satz verglichen. / Nur dadurch kann der Satz wahr
oder falsch sein, indem er ein Bild der Wirklichkeit ist" (4.05 / 4.06). Indeed,
it is also Kraus's "Sprachkritik" that serves as a model for Wittgenstein's
practical philosophizing: "Alle Philosophie ist "Sprachkritik"» (Allerdings
nicht im Sinne Mauthners.)" (4.0031). The type of language critique being
carried out that served as a model for Wittgenstein was Kraus's (not Fritz
Mauthner's pessimistic, skeptical one); and Wittgenstein's intention, to be
sure, included an attempt to apply a Krausian-like "Sprachkritik" to philo
sophical undertakings.
Even Wittgenstein's distinction between saying and showing could be
viewed as a reflection of Krausian practice. Kraus's apodictic portrayals, his
speaking ex cathedra to the effect that the aesthetic and ethical implications
of the topic were supposed to be self-evident, and that "ethics and aesthetics
are one"22-they all exemplified that some values were to be demonstrated
rather than developed in a disquisition, that such "saying" might actually be
impossible. Parallel to Kraus's practice are then Wittgenstein's dicta: "Was
154 Jay F. Bodine
gezeigt werden kann, kann nicht gesagt werden" (4.1212) and "Wovon man
nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" (7).
One further Krausian aspect of the Tractatus, important because it also
appears in different form in the later Wittgenstein, is the necessity of indi
vidually thinking through the content of the sentence and its signs, in order
to give them sense. In parallel Wittgenstein maintains: "Wir benützen das
sinnlich wahrnehmbare Zeichen (Laut- oder Schriftzeichen etc.) des Satzes als
Projektion der möglichen Sachlage. / Die Projektionsmethode ist das Denken
des Satz-Sinnes (3.11)./Das angewandte, gedachte, Satzzeichen ist der Ge
danke (3.5). / Der Gedanke ist der sinnvolle Satz" (4).23 This is an important
factor in Kraus's critique of language. Usually his analysis of language use
demonstrated, among other things, a failure on the part of speakers to per
ceive the sense of their utterances; they were oblivious to the social realities,
i.e. the motivations, (hidden) interests and implications behind their empty
phraseology. Kraus then "deconstructed" the utterances in order to disclose
(that is, to show apodictically, not to discuss) the interests and values that
were unperceived precisely because insufficient reflection was given. Often
these interests slipped through into the utterances even when the speakers
desired not to disclose them, but overcoming the lack of attention in their
speaking as well as lack of attention in listeners' reception could reveal the
"truthful" situation ("Sachverhalt"). This element of Kraus's critique of lan
guage use could also well be considered part of the Wittgensteinian denuncia
tion of those who try to indulge "philosophically" in the realm of the un
sayable or mystical.
To sum up the parallels between the two men at the stage of Wittgen
stein's Tractatus, one would need to acknowledge immediately that Wittgen
stein's philosophical analysis goes far beyond any philosophical tendencies
Kraus might have manifested, but the Krausian practice of a critique of lan
guage use and his general conceptualization of language do find consideration
and a certain attempt at philosophical justification within Wittgenstein's
conceptualization of language. Wittgenstein attempted not to work out an
ideal language (such as Russell aspired to) but to discover an underlying form
and logic in language isomorphic with the underlying form and logic of "his
world"; and that discovery was to allow for a critique of philosophic language
parallel to the general critique of language Kraus was carrying out. Actualiz
ing sense by thinking through the content of language and ascertaining the
truthfulness of sentences (or propositions) through an individual comparison
of the sense with reality was to allow for saying or stating what was in one's
world. While values in ethics and (i.e. or) aesthetics could merely be shown or
demonstrated, the essence of one's phenomenological world could be apper
ceived through sufficient individual reflection-all of which in the Tractatus

resulted in a "transcendental solipsism sub specie aeternitatis."24
IV
However, Wittgenstein's thought ultimately developed into a basically

different philosophy or world view, albeit with definite continuities. And that
new world view entails a language conceptualization that is closer in harmony
with a truly adequate understanding of Kraus, than was an attempt in the
Tractatus to harmonize with what was the earlier general misperception of
Kraus's "Sehweise" and language views. "Das Wesen" in Kraus's writings
came to be recognized as not the quintessence (or parallel to the Wittgenstein
ian logical form) of a referent, but rather merely the repeated and possibly
varied approximating conceptualization of it by the respective individual;
thus Kraus's "Wort" was to be brought into association not with a substantial
essence or with a "logico-objective core ... of the sign as such" (cf. Staten,
p. 54) but rather with the respective individual conceptualization of the refer
ent within its context and carried out on a repeatedly "original" basis. Witt
genstein also forwent pursuing the essence or logical form of objects, (i.e. of
simples, atomic facts or of the inherent, logical form of their situation).
Nevertheless, he still engages in a philosophical analysis of language use in an
attempt to determine, loosely speaking, the socially accepted meaning of dis
course, i.e. the conceptualization associated with language usages within a
language group. He investigates the conceptual structures behind language
usages but without argumentative recourse to quintessences or their logical
form. Although without a systematic comprehensiveness, his philosophy
attempts through a critique of language a therapeutic overview "sub specie
humanitatis," parallel to the socio-political and cultural language critique
Kraus was engaging in more generally all the time but without the philo
sophically therapeutic overview. Kraus did not have the "philosophische
Übersicht," but his "Sprachkritik" still finds a consideration and justification
within the later Wittgenstein's thinking, and the Krausian aspects of Wittgen
stein's later philosophy add crucial insights for a more complete and more
adequate understanding of it.
Kraus's language conceptualization and critique of language use are
closer in harmony with the later Wittgenstein's in the Philosophical Investiga
tions and On Certainty than they are with the Tractatus. And even the style
in the later Wittgenstein is more similar to Kraus's—Hacker calls it an "austere
Bauhaus style" {Insight and Illusion [London, 1972 /Oxford, 1975], p. 139);
a previous mentor named it an "imaginative austerity."25 On the other hand,
a parallel in their style is also to be found in the aphoristic nature of their
discussions, in the playful but significant results they achieve with words'
multi-various facets of meaning, and in their method of making the linguistic
156 JayF.Bodine
formulation of their point exemplify the point.26

For the present I shall have to make do with four aspects in the
Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty in treating the parallels and
complementary features between the thinking of Kraus and that of the later
Wittgenstein. Numerous other topics from the complex of Wittgenstein's
philosophy would, of course, be extremely interesting to pursue, such as, for
example, his philosophy of psychology, his views on aesthetics and (at least in
greater depth) the following of rules. Just the same, the following four topics
give sufficient evidence to illustrate that Wittgenstein includes in his own
deliberations Kraus's praxis and concerns and thus treats in the main what for
Kraus would be the work of "Geist" and "Phantasie" (as explicated above
with the pictorial representation of Kraus's views juxtaposed with the semio
tic triangle)-such that meaning is associated with linguistic forms and for
Kraus "proper" language is set together and a connection of "Wort und
Wesen" is approximated.
1) Although, in the investigation of the usage "meaning" within the
philosophic and regular linguistic endeavor of a social group, Wittgenstein
does not take recourse as in the Tractatus to the logical form of a referent,
but rather depicts "meaning" in terms contrary to an "ideality of being" or
to "form as presence" entailing the presence of a "transcendental subjectivity
sub specie aeternitatis,"27 he is still concerned with a certain type of phe
nomenology. That is, Wittgenstein like the later Derrida rejects the traditional
metaphysical understanding of meaning, which culminated in Husserl and the
Tractatus, but Wittgenstein is still concerned with the relationship of linguis
tic conceptualizations to interhuman reality or a phenomenal scene—includ
ing an individual consciousness of it, which will be treated below. In Hacker's
judgment, "No philosopher has paid greater attention or displayed greater
sensitivity to the phenomenology of language than Wittgenstein" (p. 126). In
conjunction with that his earlier notion of pictorial form was greatly relaxed
-becoming more "conventionalist" (but with limitations to conventional
ism). Hacker develops how with the later Wittgenstein "pictoriality [becomes]
loosened until it has the flexibility and optional character of the net of a
form of world-description" (p. 147). Wittgenstein speaks of Grammar or
language games entailing a "Darstellungsform" or a "Weltanschauung"
(PI § 122; cf. "Net" in TR 6.34 and esp. 6.35) and the question is then of the
relationship to our realities. Ultimately Wittgenstein finds that the language
game "is there—like our life" (OC §559). In fact, the forms of life found in
our language games are our realities, but that does not mean that these forms
of life or linguistic conceptualizations have no phenomena behind them. This
is another moment where Thomas Kuhn's notion of a paradigm proves help
fui. The problematical relationship of Wittgenstein's language games with

their respective forms of life is similar to the relationship of a paradigm to the
actual, material world. Persuading one to adopt one language game or para
digm rather than another, convincing another person in argument to undergo
a paradigm shift, entails the person's making a phenomenologjcal-like com
parison of the person's conceptualizations and forms of life with the particu
lar aspects of the social or material reality under concern. This "phenomeno
logical" aspect of Wittgenstein's thought, paralleled in Kraus's critique of
language use, has been overlooked all too often, but it is evident, particularly
in On Certainty, where Wittgenstein speaks of the change from one language
game (paradigm) to another (§609-618,305); and then asks in §617: "In
deed, doesn't it seem obvious, that the possibility of a language-game is con
ditioned by certain facts? "28 An overemphasis on the use-aspect of meaning
in the Philosophical Investigations allows this more phenomenological aspect
to be overlooked. The Krausian background and juxtaposition highlights the
import of this aspect of meaning in the later Wittgenstein.29 Indeed, Kraus is
the best explanation for a certain "phenomenological" connection in Witt
genstein's thought-and certainly not the skeptical Fritz Mauthner—which
Nicholas Gier surmises in his 1981 search for such an influence in Wittgen
steinand Phenomenology (Albany, 1981).30
2) Grammar for Wittgenstein comprises a "network of concepts and
conceptual connections formed by the rules determining the use of language,
as well as those rules themselves" (Hacker, p. 151), and thus "our conception
of the structure of reality is a projection of our grammar" (Hacker, p. 160).
Our language system structures our conceptualization of our world. This is a
view of language for which Wittgenstein would immediately have found a
parallel in the discussions of Karl Kraus.
In a large sense, for Kraus it is the language system itself.that enables
the achievement of not only conventional meaning but also artistic, manifold
meaning in great language art. Kraus states:
Ich beherrsche nur die Sprache der andern. Die meinige macht mit
mir, was sie will (W 3,326).
Ich beherrsche die Sprache nicht; aber die Sprache beherrscht mich
vollkommen. Sie ist mir nicht die Dienerin meiner Gedanken. Ich
lebe in einer Verbindung mit ihr, aus der ich Gedanken empfange,
und sie kann mit mir machen, was sie will. Ich pariere ihr aufs Wort.
Denn aus dem Wort springt mir der junge Gedanke entgegen und
formt rückwirkend die Sprache, die ihn schuf. Solche Gnade der Ge
dankenträchtigkeit zwingt auf die Knie und macht allen Aufwand
158 JayF.Bodine
zitternder Sorgfalt zur Pflicht. Die Sprache ist eine Herrin der Ge
danken, und wer das Verhältnis umzukehren vermag, dem macht sie
sich im Hause nützlich, aber sie sperrt ihm den Schoß (W 3, 134
135).
Kraus made numerous statements concerning the influence of the inter

connecting associations in language structure upon the speaker and especially
upon the writer or poet. This influence is of such strength to him that he
considers himself a servant of language. The most striking and appropriate
formulation of a particular thought seems to be determined by the associa
tions and structure of the language system. Language masters him, i.e., the
creative aspect of language determines his language art.
While, however, the language system at least delimits and gives form to
the thoughts that are expressed, that fact does not eliminate the need for
individual interaction with, or direction of, the system. Although Kraus did
write: "Die Sprache ist die Mutter, nicht die Magd des Gedankens" (W 3,
235), he also averred: "Die Sprache Mutter des Gedankens? Dieser kein
Verdienst des Denkenden? 0 doch, er muß jene schwängern" (W 3, 328).31
Admittedly, all these statements are to be understood figuratively, but there
exist for Kraus specific and definite linguistic principles in them. "Langue"
or the language system-much as the modal or tonal systems used in musical
improvisation and composition-conditions to a great extent how something,
and thus, what is expressed.32 However, it is not the semiotic system alone
that conditions and generates meanings in individual utterances; the input of
the thinker, the generator, is also essential. This is one major juncture where
Kraus and Wittgenstein-while practicing a type of "deconstruction"-part
from the epistemology of a Derrida. This will be elaborated upon below.
Wittgenstein's views on the relative autonomous nature of grammar are
similar to what Kraus's views entail.33 The social rigidity of the grammar, the
possibility of only congruent development and change, and the views on a
language game being similar to a style of painting find echo in Kraus.34
Also Wittgenstein's notions concerning criteria for justifiable language
usage find a definite reflection in the works and "Sprachkritik" of Kraus.
Hacker discusses criteria as constituting "tacit intuitive knowledge of critical
rules justifying the employment of an expression" (Hacker, p. 292). When
Wittgenstein discusses criteria, it would be impossible for him not to "have in
mind" at least to some extent Kraus's discussions and his tests on the func
tioning of individual "Geist" and "Phantasie"—the application of a Krausian
doubting ("Zweifel"). For Kraus that would require, along with "following
the rules" or assuring correct results from the functioning of "Geist" and
"Phantasie" (that the usage be linguistically logical—and everything which

that would entail for Kraus), also that the usage be significant, and true, i.e.
individually forthright or genuine, ethical.35
A quick glimpse into Kraus's views concerning one aspect of what is
involved in "following a rule" can also provide another insight into what that
hotly debated topic could entail for Wittgenstein. Kraus's views have super
ficially been understood to require the strictest adherence conceivable to
grammar rules, but they entail more a "paying attention to the rule" or
"taking it into consideration" and even calling it to account, rather than
paying an absolute obedience:
Es gibt in der Sprache nichts Falsches, das die Sprache nicht zu

einem Richtigen machen könnte. Die Wissenschaft von ihr ist die
unentbehrliche Voraussetzung, um zu wissen, wann man sie um
gehen darf.... Die Regeln sind wohl einem Sprachgefühl abgenom
men, aber ein feineres könnte sich wieder in ihrer Auflösung be
währen (W 2,27).
Denn im Mutterschoß der Sprache trägt sich alles jenseits von
Richtig und Unrichtig zu.... Die [häßlichste Form] bleibt den Vor
schriften unterworfen. Und etwas anderes ist es, dem Sprachgeheim
nis, es unter die Verantwortung der Regel stellend, nahezutreten,
oder ihm nahezukommen, indem man die Regel selbst zur Rechen
schaft zwingt. Denn es gibt keine, und schiene sie noch so äußerlich,
der sich nicht das Innerste von jenem Wesen [der Sprache als Lan
gue] absehen ließe, an das sie nicht herankommt (W 2,120).
3) A third major complex paralleled in the two men's conceptualiza

tion of language concerns the idea of language idling. That is found in Kraus's
thinking as the notion that an inadequate conceptualization of the referent
was achieved in the first place. The critique of "Phrasen," i.e. of drivel,
utterances not thought through, is a major element of Kraus's critique of lan
guage use. This is the area where the Krausian doubting ("Zweifel") found its
perhaps most intensive application-and to be sure, in his own language use
also, but particularly in his "Sprachkritik" or in the critique of others'
utterances.
This complex in the later Wittgenstein-which is, of course, also a con

tinuation on the motif found in the Tractatus and mentioned above, namely,
of thinking through the sense of a proposition as the method of projecting it
—this complex in the Philosophical Investigations comes to light in the
contrast between "denkendes Sprechen" and "gedankenloses Sprechen"
160 Jay F. Bodine
(weakly rendered as "speech with thought" and "talking without thinking" in

§ 330).36 The Investigations are replete with this complex, but one form of it
seems to have caused the translators and different commentators some diffi
culty, namely the motif of "leerlaufen"-literally, "running emptily or idly."
§507 reads in English: '"I am not merely saying this, I mean something by
it.' When we consider what is going on in us when we mean (and don't
merely say) words, it seems to us as if there were something coupled to these
words, which [words] otherwise would run idle. As if they, so to speak, con
nected with something in us [meshed / intervened in us, not with something
in us]."37
Perhaps the philosophers caught up with the "linguistic turn" were not
encumbered with drivel or "idle talk," but to someone familiar with Kraus's
treatment of it in the journalism, politics and literary/artistic endeavors in
Vienna and the German-speaking world (including National Socialist Ger
many) it is certainly nothing new. Wittgenstein is well aware of this aspect of
linguistic usages and definitely includes consideration of it in his "grammati
cal investigation" of language games; but translating "leerlaufen" with the
image of an "engine idling" does not give full justice to its import.
Continuing with the mechanization metaphor and stipulating that the
motor is that of an automobile, the more accurate image involves whether or
not the driver was paying attention to where he was going in the vehicle or to
where it was taking him. Even with the driver physically inside, if he is
mentally absent, the car is going down the road "emptily." Or the car would
still be going forward, but the driver would not be making any progress. In
fact, as Kraus repeatedly emphasized, it could be immensely dangerous.38
The non-functioning of language in this regard then refers to a lack of
consciousness on the part of the speaker as to what his utterances imply,
which often leads to disastrous results. "Properly" functioning language con
sists then of utterances conveying specific, reflected meaning—void of inanity
and unexamined, ideologized hackneyed phrases. The context of Wittgen
stein's use of this motif also shows some of the bounds within which he sees
"proper" language use and the "proper" role of his philosophical praxis:
§ 132. We want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of

language: an order with a particular end in view; one out of many
possible orders; not the order. To this end we shall constantly be
giving prominence to distinctions which our ordinary forms of
language easily make us overlook. This may make it look as if we
saw it as our task to reform language. Such a reform for particular
practical purposes, an improvement in our terminology designed to
prevent misunderstandings in practice, is perfectly possible. But

these are not the cases we have to do with [here in dealing with
philosophic problems]. The confusions which occupy us arise when
language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work [i.e. like a
car with its driver mentally idle, not progressing]. § 133. It is not our
aim to refine or complete [in an unheard-of manner] the system of
rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways 39
To be sure, it is not Wittgenstein's purpose "to refine or complete [in an un

heard-of manner] the system of rules for the use of our words"- neither
Kraus nor Wittgenstein want to alter or to augment grammar rules-but that
still leaves them immense room for the "deconstruction" (see below) prac
ticed by both with a critique or rejection of faulty language use, of language
unperceived, not thought through.
As a result, finer differentiations axe often required, as for instance
when Henry Staten understands "leerlaufen" in Wittgenstein to be pertaining
merely to philosophical discourse (Staten, p. 94). Staten is correct in his per
ception that Wittgenstein's point in discussing deviant rule behavior is that we
find it unintelligible "because our minds are closed to some other way of
doing it as a consequence of our being so utterly under the spell of our usual
way" (Staten, p. 101). However, Wittgenstein does not advocate "yielding to
[an] automatism of language-a use of words blindly, in the way we are in
clined to use them without thinking and without justification" (Staten,
p. 105). Indeed, as Staten himself points out, it is this automatism, customary
usage or "normality" that induces philosophical illusion, particularly the
illusion of effecting essence of being and presence (Staten, pp. 78-79). While
Wittgenstein is not a "policeman who enforces community standards in lan
guage use [especially of a grammatical nature]" (Staten, pp. 97-98), he does
advocate something akin to Staten's description: learning "to 'hearken" to
the shifts that [one's] 'rule' keeps making ... [being] aware of all the differ
ent ways in which it is possible to be guided [by the rule]" (Staten, p. 105).
Definitely "Wittgenstein attempts to teach us to approach language [as a
learner]," as one for whom "no such automatism is in place" (Staten, p. 104).
That is parallel to Kraus's sensitive and childlike, "original" language use, and
in contrast to the mindless or empty phrases he condemned.
4) A fourth and last parallel complex to be mentioned here is that of
perceiving varied "aspects" of meaning or "seeing as" (in Philosophical In
vestigations pt. II, section xi, pp. 193-229). The problematical nature of
understanding manifold aspects of words has already been touched upon
above. Wittgenstein refers to the Jastrow rabbit-duck figure and explains that
162 Jay F. Bodine
one must differentiate between the "continuous seeing" of one aspect and
the "dawning" of another aspect. Part and parcel of a more complete under
standing then is the seeing of not only one aspect, but also of the other; not
only the one perception of the figure, rabbit or duck, but the other percep
tion as well. Perceiving both or all aspects of an image, statement, or thought
complex is often problematical.40
In an important sense, recognizing a new aspect would be like per
ceiving or understanding a new paradigm for Thomas Kuhn. Or actually in the
more aesthetic context of Kraus and Wittgenstein: recognizing all the aspects
of a paradigm "complex" could be requisite for understanding it as a para
digm. That would not entail "converting" to a new paradigm in a paradigm
shift, but it would be requisite for understanding it. Not recognizing the most
pertinent aspects of a writer and cultural critic (Kraus) or of a philosopher
(Wittgenstein) would preclude a full or perhaps adequate understanding of
him.
With this treatment of "aspect" and "seeing as"-the individual ability
(or the quality of an expression which allows one) to shift and to recognize
the same complex as something else as well-Kraus's praxis with polysemous
words and resultant multi-level (multi-aspectual) thought complexes41 finds
inclusion and thus a certain perspective in Wittgenstein's philosophic overview
of meaning. And Wittgenstein's multi-aspectual philosophy is enhanced with
the recognition of the parallel practical element from Kraus's critical cultural
endeavors.
But there are further elements or details in an adequate understanding
of manifold aspects that Wittgenstein treats and that are paralleled in Kraus.
The whole complex of "seeing" manifold aspects makes an aesthetic nature
manifest. Better connoisseurs of men or of the language (or of music, art) are
better able to play the particular game (p. 227); aspect blindness (p. 213) is
akin to the lack of a musical ear (p. 214). Children play this game well (pp.
206-208), for it requires imagination or "Vorstellungskraft" (p. 207), "Phan
tasie" (p. 213). It is, of course, related to the experiencing of the meaning of
a word (pp. 210, 214); and seeing aspects, imagining, is subject to the will
(p. 213).
V
What are the ramifications of this analysis? They concern a more ade
quate understanding of Kraus and Wittgenstein, individually and collectively,
by both entailing a discussion of, and exemplifying the discussion's con
clusions concerning, the problematical nature of textual understanding
generally.
a) The first point to be made is a reiteration on paradigms. "Seeing"

the thought of each man separately "as" a paradigm or seeing them together
as part of an extension of the same "new" paradigm is an aid to understand
ing why recognizing them or coming to an understanding of them should be
so problematic.
From Wittgenstein scholarship P.M.S. Hacker and others have already
drawn attention to the parallel between "paradigms" and "language game
world pictures" as a means of liirowing some light on certain aspects of lan
guage games (Hacker, pp. 146-147, 171). Thomas Kuhn himself speaks of
various modem philosophers of science (himself included among those listed)
being "sometimes also significantly influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein" (The
Essential Tension [Chicago, 1977], p. 121).
To be sure, it is not so flattering for the hard, fast sciences to be com
pared with the somewhat aesthetic language games, as it is flattering for the
aesthetic endeavors to have the comparison made in the other direction,
namely, to scientific paradigms. Accordingly, when Kuhn refers to the rabbit/
duck figure, Wittgenstein's name is not mentioned; and rather than treating
multi-level, multi-aspectual meaning, Kuhn speaks of a "Gestalt switch" in
the context of shifting from one paradigm to another. A new scientific para
digm, unlike Wittgenstein's and Kraus's, does not so much entail incorpo
rating the principle of manifold aspects—the seeing of new or additional
aspects at the same time as seeing the previous ones—but rather it shifts
entirely to a new perspective or "better" way of seeing phenomena; it shifts
from the rabbit to the duck (Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. by
Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave [1970], p. 3).
Nevertheless, in differentiating between theories or paradigms (rabbit
and duck, his theory of scientific development and Karl Popper's), Thomas
Kuhn speaks of the "fundamental nature" of language, the precedence of
language providing a model, a world picture before scientific theory is elabo
rated (Criticism and Growth ..pp. 234-235,266-277). In fact, the basis of
a paradigm can be seen as linguistic; Kuhn elaborates upon the "language
conditioned or language-correlated way of seeing the world" (p. 274). But
that produces problems during times of "scientific revolution." Also the
incommensurability of different scientific world views or paradigms is often
unrecognized when different conceptions are associated with the same lin
guistic sign. That is, a problematic translation is needed between the in
commensurable world views,42 but that is often not recognized precisely be
cause different scientific communities will not recognize they are using the
same words with different meanings. Dalton's atomic theory, for instance,
"implied a new view of chemical combination with [the meaning of] 'com
164 Jay F. Bodine
pound' shifted; alloys were compounds before Dalton, mixtures after" (p.
269). The basic word "compound" and consequently also "alloy" simply had
different meanings for different scientific communities, and understanding
the other incommensurable paradigm was impossible without discovering that
fact and translating the different meaning.
One seems to go through various stages, then, in one's dealing with a
new paradigm. One first recognizes it as such and then comes to an under
standing of it through translation; and then one possibly goes on to a "con
version" to it. As Kuhn points out, however, often contributing reasons for a
"conversion" are non-scientific and based rather upon a faith in future
problem-solving possibilities (or ideology and individual values and sometimes
even aesthetics).43
b) A second point to be made will require some added input in order
to couch our conclusions within the context of the current debate on inter
pretative theory. Manfred Frank in Was ist Neostrukturalismus (Frankfurt,
1983/1984)44—in one of the most important (and difficult) theoretical dis
cussions of the last several decades, at least since Gadamer, and while building
upon his earlier analyses such as Das Sagbare und das Unsagbare. Studien zur
neuesten französischen Hermeneutik und Texttheorie (Frankfurt, 1980)—
Manfred Frank has provided the key to employing justifiably many of the
interpretive techniques of French poststructuralism, while rejecting what
many consider in poststructuralism to be a disastrous epistemology. In doing
so Frank has provided the most analytical study to date of "post-modern"
French thinking and culminated that analysis with a certain breakthrough
entailing a well-founded and generally desirable epistemology.
In order to discuss merely the results here, almost unjustifiable simpli
fication is required, but Frank's program is briefly this: rejecting Foucault's
and Derrida's rejection of the individual subject's role in meaning and under
standing, Frank goes back to Schleiermacher (and also to Fichte, Schelling
and Sartre) to show that neither presence nor reflection is required for the
justification of consciousness and ultimately of self-consciousness.45 Prior to
any reflection is a certain individual, transcendental consciousness familiar to
itself. This consciousness is able to act upon its motivations, is able to attrib
ute sense to the language-code differentiations it encounters and reiterates,
i.e.Asign demarcations or "marques" (from which Derrida ultimately derives
all meaning). Thus every writing and reading (and, of course, speaking and
hearing) becomes an interpretive act of individual consciousness; whereas for
Derrida (and to a great extent for poststructuralism generally) the "diffé
renciation" or quasi-active, conscious-like functioning of a linguistic code
carries out the generation and reception of "texts" and conveying of meaning
grounded in the differentiations or "marques" (both "différences" and

"différences") of the code.46
Explicating precisely the role of individual consciousness in the later
Wittgenstein's thought is an involved undertaking. In approaching the ques
tion primarily through the analysis of semantics in language use, rather than
through the semiological method of structuralism and poststructuralism (i.e.
through the analysis of the capacity of signs to differentiate themselves on
the basis of absence or negativeness), Wittgenstein, emerging from the Kan
tian tradition,- also rejects the Cartesian "proof' of a pure ego. But still, as
seen in his complex arguments against both the notion of a private language
and the traditional doctrine of non-cognitive avowals, Wittgenstein subscribes
to the idea of an individual consciousness engaged in generating meaning and
interpretations.47
What Kraus's position is with this question of an individual conscious
ness or subject vis-à-vis a "super-subject of language" can be grasped quickly
by recalling that, although Kraus metaphorically considers language to be the
mother of thought and to be "mastering" him and his thinking-one is better
off considering oneself a servant of language (W 3,326 and 134-135)—Kraus
also considers thought to be an accomplishment of the thinker; the father
thinker must impregnate the mother language (W 3,328; quoted above).
c) With this hastily sketched-in theoretical foundation we can now
approach on the level of general interpretive theory the question as to what
an adequate understanding entails.
I have already briefly touched upon this question elsewhere-in the con
text of receptive aesthetics or reader response theory, and specifically con
cerning the juxtaposition of Karl Kraus's and Heinrich Heine's receptive
traditions.48 If I there took a position which had at least one similarity to the
position of E. D. Hirsch 49 that should not be taken as constituting a commit
ment to determinate meaning. The standpoint is: even if meaning is ulti
mately indeterminate—to put it in the simplest lay terms-that does not
preclude the author, in many if not most communications (or: in most, if not
all), from "intending" a basic message, nor a reader or listener from forming
an adequate understanding of that ("intended") indeterminate message. I did
not argue and am not arguing for more than adequate understanding— to be
achieved through interpretation-which would include an interpretation of
intention wherever possible. To be sure, there is such a phenomenon as the
intentional fallacy.50 But again, that does not preclude the necessity of
considering authorial intention and of incorporating an interpretation of it
wherever possible in the total receptive interpretation—i.e. even if the text
contains either more or less than the author intended or even if no intention
166 Jay F. Bodine
can ultimately be determined.

The means of achieving an (adequate) understanding, through the dia
lectical interpretation of linguistic signs by individual consciousness, is out
lined by Manfred Frank in the concluding chapters of Was ist Neostruktura
lismus as well as in his books Das individuelle Allgemeine. Textstrukturie
rung und -interpretation nach Schleiermacher (Frankfurt, 1977) and Dos Sag
bare und das Unsagbare (especially the section "Der Text und sein Stil.
Schleiermachers Sprachtheorie," pp. 13-35). A treatment of all the complex
issues involved goes well beyond the scope of this study; it will have to
suffice here to note various fundamental conclusions, such as: 1) the func
tioning of consciousness under requisite conditions of individual freedom
(Neostrukturalismus, p. 555); 2) indeed, an emphasis of the individual devia
tion from the general;51 3) the motivation, rather than causation provided by
signs for specific interpretations;52 4) the reproduction of meaning as one's
"effecting the same creativity of sense projection afterwards" (essentially
equivalent to Kraus's "ursprüngliches Verstehen");53 and 5) "divination" as
an original understanding going beyond discovery procedures of a deductive/
decoding nature.54
In sum, to paraphrase Frank's conclusions on this point: if linguistic
meaning is ultimately indeterminate, that does not mean that no larger sense
differentiations can be ascertained or that interpretations are capricious or
incapable of reproduction. Interpretive hypotheses are always "motivated"
by the text. They are justifiable and accountable; otherwise they would have
no claim to validity and could not assert themselves or catch on—as they do
daily.55 Thus a certain validity of communication can obtain on the basis of
individual interpretation of linguistic signs.
But how does one determine whether or not a misunderstanding of the
message has occurred? To be sure, by "effecting the same creativity of sense
projection afterwards." But are there no further means of differentiating a
correct from an inconect interpretation/understanding? This is clearly one of
the main areas of lack in the Heideggerian hermeneutical tradition-continu
ing on in Gadamer and the French postmodernists—and in the popularization
of Gadamer in David Couzens Hoy's The Critical Circle. Literature, History
and Philosophical Hermeneutics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1978). There are
insufficient or no criteria for determining that some interpretations are "less
adequate" than others for understanding a text. Relying with Gadamer
merely upon tradition will—if the traditional understanding is inadequate—
not help to determine that something in one's own understanding is lacking.
Indeed, tradition is of itself insufficient to help choose between two con
flicting interpretations.
In 1980 Manfred Frank spoke of radical misunderstandings of Schleier

macher's hermeneutics and principle of divination ("dessen Wirkungsge
schichte von den schlimmsten Mißverständnissen skandiert ist"; Das Sagbare
und das Unsagbare, p. 28, cf. p. 30). In 1983 Frank describes the same under
standing with other language: "Vielleicht sollte man gar nicht sagen, die
Wirkungsgeschichte habe Schleiermacher systematisch mißverstanden. Was
wäre schließlich... das Richtmaß fiir die Rekonstruktion eines Textes in
seiner "Urspriinglichkeit"? Sagen wir lieber, daß das kulturelle und histori
sche Apriori der zweiten Hälfte des 19. und der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahr
hunderts gewisse Züge in Schleiermachers Hermeneutik nicht hat entdecken
lassen, die wir heute in den Blick bringen können" (Neostrukturalismus,
p. 570)—while at the same time saying, six pages earlier, "Man muß also
genauer lesen ..." (p. 564). But to what extent was the reader not reading
"exactly enough," i-e- not adequately interpreting textual motivation be
fore? Especially when it is necessary to judge between competing, contra
dictory interpretations, this stance also found in Manfred Frank would be
hedging to a certain extent. The point is firstly: How does one generally
know he or she needs to read more exactly? And then: Is a particular "more
exact reading" more "adequate" or "accurate" than another? Can one de
termine that a particular "cultural and historical a priori" is insufficient for
present needs in understanding? Are there criteria for determining the ade
quacy of understanding?
The first test is, indeed, close reading, an interpretation based upon
careful attention to the textual motivations. The next criterion is, as has
become obvious from the discussion, a textually motivated interpretation of
the author's intention, wherever that is possible. A third, now equally obvious
suggestion as a criterion for adequate understanding of polysemous or "aes
thetic texts," is that of ascertaining whether all Wittgensteinian "aspects"
have been recognized and interpreted. We should recall that recognizing
additional aspects is for Wittgenstein a matter of the will. With mono
aspectual or "scientific texts" the analogous test might be as to whether or
not a "Gestalt switch" to a new "Sehweise" or world view has been dis
covered and the concomitant new linguistic usages understood. With both
types of texts the criterion resolves itself into the question: Has the new
paradigm of textual understanding been recognized and comprehended?
In this manner our knowledge of the problematical nature of paradigms helps
us to know how to make an investigation and to gain an understanding of a
"new interpretation-paradigm"-and to help us judge whether a particular
interpretation is better able to explain the "facts" ("Sachverhalt") or text
than another interpretation is.
168 Jay F. Bodine
To be sure, often eminent commentators will not immediately make

the gestalt-switch or grasp the multi-aspectual values of a new and different
paradigm. And understanding a new paradigm does not necessitate adopting
it. The new paradigm has to prove itself to be superior, usually with greater
hope for solving problems, i.e. for providing an answer to more or newly
pressing questions. There certainly is no onus in not immediately grasping
new aspects; but the process of recognition and then understanding is subject
to the will, and responsible commentary will try to grasp a newly proclaimed
paradigm. Recognizing and understanding a new paradigm is most often
furthered by the posing of a challenge to the established aspectual view; and
should ever the attempt be made to avoid coming to terms with it (attempt
ing to ignore an "Auseinandersetzung" with it), then one possibly remains
merely at the level of an inadequate understanding of the phenomena—or
text—and simply has no justifiable claim for the same adequacy of under
standing that the new paradigm can claim until it is disproved or surpassed.
d) To return now to Kraus and Wittgenstein: i) How do the thought
and cultural endeavor of Karl Kraus and Ludwig Wittgenstein fit into the
context of interpretation and textual understanding just sketched out?
ii) And how do these principles of textually motivated interpretation help in
judging among conflicting interpretations of each and both?
i) While on the one hand Wittgenstein's pragmatic approach avoids the
"metaphysics"-the search for "presence of being"-in Hegel and Husserlian
phenomenology, which the French poststructuralists or postmodernists find
objectionable;56 on the other hand he does not indulge in the semiological
and epistemological vagaries of the structuralists and of the Heideggerian
tradition,57 in which the role of authors' and readers' "(self-)consciousness"
is lost to a "super-subject of language." Or seen with the positive aspects:
while on the one hand Wittgenstein engages in a certain philosophical de
construction;58 on the other hand (especially when seen in a Krausian con
text) his endeavor includes an individual interpreting consciousness employ
ing a type of dialectical hermeneutics for generating and understanding utter
ances and complete language games. Indeed he exemplifies the type of
epistemology and the possibility of "deconstructive" analysis outlined by
Manfred Frank-providing the context into which the deconstructive aspects
highlighted by Henry Staten and certain phenomenological aspects focused
upon by Nicholas Gier can fit (but not including a presence of being).
Indeed it is within the context of this epistemology and with Wittgen
steinian categories and criteria for comprehending aspects and complete "para
digmatic" language games that we are often best able to sketch out, as a prin
ciple, what adequate understanding of a new paradigm-interpretation entails.
Wittgenstein's approach concentrating more on semantic analysis and

language usage is different methodologically from the more semiological
approach of the French poststructuralists, but that difference in approach is
in this regard not of great consequence. More important is that Wittgenstein
seems generally both to match the theoretical desiderata outlined above as
well as to avoid the objectionable aspects.
How does Kraus fit into this theoretical context? While Kraus does
not, of course, engage in a philosophical discourse concerning being, con
sciousness, reflection and profilation of the empirical self through language,
or the epistemological conditions of adequate understanding; yet he does fit
into the same epistemological framework and does have a surprisingly great
deal to say that has a bearing upon these issues. Indeed he likely said more on
the role of language in the conditioning of our thinking (and perhaps also on
the problematical relationship between the abstract author or self and his
texts) than any modern German literary figure. And if Wittgenstein could be
considered the German philosophical deconstructionist (in accordance with
the depiction in Staten's Wittgenstein and Derrida), then Kraus would be the
German deconstructionist of general cultural and aesthetic practice. And this
deconstruction as understood in a narrower sense of the term parallel to that
suggested by Staten (pp. 1-2) was carried out by the master moralist, satirist,
and stylist of modern German letters. Indeed Kraus deconstructed not
only general Cultural endeavors but also the language and concomitant
mentality of the National Socialists—which deconstruction was completed in
1933 and amounts to the most scathing revelation and denunciation of the
National Socialist thinking and character yet written in the German lan
guage.59
Word of a dialectical hermeneutic was mentioned above in conjunction
with Wittgenstein's approach. That complex, indeed, goes beyojid the scope
of this present analysis; but an investigation including even negative dialectics
in a Krausian context, that is, a thorough examination of the parallels, inter
relationship between, and even influence of Kraus on Benjamin, Adomo and
Marcuse-and how that fits in with the Krausian paradigm developed so far in
this study-is necessary and will be forthcoming.60
ii) And how can the principles of textually motivated interpretation
sketched out above help in judging among conflicting interpretations of each
writer and both together? To what extent can we hope to obtain an adequate
understanding of this philosopher and of this cultural critic/author, who were
both fearful of being misunderstood?
The historical reception particularly of Karl Kraus but also that of
Ludwig Wittgenstein has been greatly varied, producing often contradictory
170 Jay F. Bodine
findings. Highly qualified and renowned scholars have commented upon Witt
genstein. But in light of Wittgenstein's extreme concern for obtaining correct
understanding of his thought-and in this context or another also requiring
consideration of these additional aspects of his thought-one would have to
consider many earlier readings of the philosophers concentrating upon the
ordinary language or linguistic turn movement in Britain or also the readings
deriving from the Viennese Positivists to be inadequate. "Inadequate" might,
however, sound harsher than what it needs to denote. In many instances it
will be applicable solely to the extent that a new aspect or paradigm has not
been perceived and in a context of specific questions or problems the com
mentator needs to address. If the multi-aspectual understanding of Kraus and
Wittgenstein presented here were to be disproved, or as soon as new questions
for an interpretation arise which this paradigm is incapable of answering, then
this present reading would and (in the second case) will have to be designated
as inadequate and be surpassed also.
But the claim here is that understanding both men in a Krausian con
text—i.e. with the additional Krausian aspects and "multi-aspectually"-is for
the present a superior paradigm. One of the questions this reading helps to
resolve is that of the very possibility of an adequate understanding and what
is entailed in one. Understanding Kraus and Wittgenstein as an unrecognized
paradigm (or perhaps as related paradigms) answers Dominick Lacapra's
question as to why not all with a basic knowledge of the Viennese back
ground have understood Wittgenstein and Kraus correctly (adequately). This
paradigm acts as a corrective to the perhaps customary reading of Wittgen
stein,.such as that found also in Manfred Frank's reduction of all meaning for
Wittgenstein to that of use (helping a collective form of life to expression;
p. 492) or in Frank's reading of Wittgenstein to the effect that Wittgenstein
supposedly reduced the ego to the general meaning function of the index
word (p. 539, note 4). The paradigm corrects the reading of Wittgenstein's
language games as being non-ethical play, but loose from social concerns, such
as is the interpretation found in Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man
(Boston, 1964; pp. 173-183).61 Reading Wittgenstein in the context of a
Krausian paradigm supplies the ethical and "sprachkritische" aspect to Witt
genstein's thought as well as a type of "phenomenological connection"
sought for in recent Wittgenstein studies (N. Gier, Wittgenstein and Pheno
menology). And, as already mentioned, it puts Wittgenstein into a more
"adequate" epistemological context when talking about a Wittgenstein
deconstruction.62
The receptive history of Karl Kraus is also filled with varying, that is,
conflicting, interpretations and evaluations. In fact, in the reception of no
other German writer except perhaps Heine's can be found equally vociferous
and disparate judgments; there were also variously differing "paradigms" of
"Krausians" coming out of Vienna.63 Particularly with the varying readings
of Kraus the question of adequate understanding arises; the need for prin
ciples to differentiate between adequate and inadequate interpretations
makes itself felt. Kraus's seemingly innumerable statements concerning the
"correct" understanding of his oeuvre,64 and the Krausian principles leading
to Wittgenstein's category of "aspect" and our association of that with the
concept of "paradigm" are instrumental in being able to set up principles for
determining an "adequate understanding" of Kraus.
Never, it would seem, did Kraus tire of reminding his readers of the care
he used in writing and publishing his oeuvre (see e.g. W. 2, 104-105) and of
the care they should give to understanding its aphoristic mode of half- or one
and-a-half truths (W 3, 117 and 161), which would require at least two to
three readings (see e.g. W 3, 116; cf. W3, 165 and 175; W 7, 173-174).
Definitely Kraus would subscribe to the possibility of ascertaining an author's
meaning to at least the extent entailed by Manfred Frank's description of
"textual motivation." But Kraus continues on with his demands for adequate
understanding from his readers. One has to conclude that-as far as Kraus is
concerned—in order to understand Kraus adequately, one has both to give
consideration to Kraus's intentions and to see through the aphoristic half- or
one-and-a-half truths to perceiving Kraus's paradoxical formulations.65 The
conclusion that Kraus simply manifested numerous contradictions is a good
sign of inadequate understanding on the part of a commentator. "Persönlich
keiten sind übel daran. Die Menge sieht nur die Fläche, auf der sich die
Widersprüche zeichnen. Aber diese sprechen fur eine Tiefe, in der ihr Treff
punkt liegt" (W 3,91). If a commentator does not perceive the paradoxes and
(at least for Kraus's way of thinking) resolve the contradictions, then the
commentator has not only not given consideration to Kraus's intentions, he
or she has not grasped the level of Kraus's thinking, that is, the essential
aspects of his "Sehweise," world view or "paradigm." The reading is inade
quate . To find the core of his thinking one has to dig deeper.
For some there is a question as to whether an adequate understanding
of Kraus is at all possible. Within the context of the epistemology sketched
in above and based upon principles outlined by Wittgenstein, Thomas Kuhn
and Manfred Frank, one would have to concur with Wunbergthat the absolute
repetition of Kraus's total and exactly same meanings in his word play can
not be obtained. However, understanding in the first place, and especially
"original" understanding in Kraus's sense, entails not reduplicating exactly
the same determinate meaning, but rather reenacting the ("original" in a
172 JayF.Bodine
Krausian sense) "creativity of sense projection" (Neostrukturalismus, pp.

556-557, quoted above in note 53). Even if we cannot reduplicate a deter
minate meaning or exactly everything Kraus may have personally "had in
mind" with his word play, his text still motivates our understanding to the
extent that if we adequately interpret his intended language motivations, the
way is indeed open to engage the same "creativity of sense projection" and to
understand his "Sehweise." That is, taking into consideration his intentions
and textual motivations, fathoming his "Sehweise" at a depth where the
paradoxes and apparent contradictions are resolved, amounts to perceiving his
intended meaning and comprehending his "paradigm." It constitutes ade
quate understanding. Perceiving the paradigm, the multi-aspectual nature of
his thinking, the ramifications of his "Sehweise," that is what is central to an
adequate understanding of his oeuvre, not a determinate meaning or all of
what he might personally have had in mind when he generated a particular
play on words.
To be sure, commentary on the Viennese and linguistic background of
Kraus's formulations is an immense aid to comprehending the semiotic
motivation of the text. But here is also a specific sense in which the individual
instigation of a discussion ("der stoffliche Anlaß") is not the most essential
element for understanding Kraus;66 what is essential for him is rather the
greater (paradigmatic) principles involved. The grasping of the contextual
multi-aspectual "Sehweise" or paradigm is crucial, not necessarily the repro
duction of Kraus's own complete, exactly same meaning with each particular
word play or formulation.
Similarly, when we take note of what we suppose to be Kraus's per
sonal motivations in a satire or polemic (motivations understood here not as
textual motivations of meaning)-ultimately disregarding here to what extent
it is possible to reconstruct sometimes even the events supposedly moti
vating him personally much less his actual, often unstated, thinking concern
ing that motivation—to the extent that we then disregard his expressed in
tentions and stated claims of being concerned with greater principles, to that
extent we have disregarded how the man viewed himself (or at least presented
himself with what most would have to consider genuineness and integrity).
On that basis, if we disregard his stated intentions and how he viewed himself,
we have no just claim for an adequate understanding of his world view or
paradigm.
What is requisite is a historical understanding of the man's central ideas
—i.e. a comprehension of his "Sehweise" or paradigm (and in its historical
context). But the argument here is not for a conversion to "Krausism." For
instance, to the extent that one can suspect or even determine personal
motivation for some of Kraus's critical positions, to that extent one can
readily reject that motivation yet still respect the principles Kraus cites as
justification for his position. One can also readily reject the absolutism Kraus
exhibited in his critical stance. The apodictic tone and general pathos are
foreign to present-day tastes and practice. One might conclude that numerous
pragmatic concerns unfortunately preclude generally adopting Kraus's more
idealistic "Sehweise." But what is requisite is recognizing the "paradigm" and
understanding it. Then perhaps a certain historical respect might well be
appropriate.67 Many, however, might also find several of his perspectives
salubrious for the present day.68
Colorado State University
NOTES
'See e.g. the Preface of PI, pp. ix-x, or the account of a young student's
misrepresenting his thought, as supplied by Norman Malcolm in his Ludwig
Wittgenstein. A Memoir (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 59. PI
refers to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan,
2nd ed., 1958); TR to his Tractatus logico-philosophicus (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1960); and OC to On Certainty (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1969).
2Cf. Wittgenstein: "What I give is the morphology of the use of an expres

sion. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philo
sophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is to
suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of
which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one
possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others. Further
more, I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to
those narrow possibilities. Thus your mental cramp is relieved, and you are
free to look around the field of use of the expression and to describe the
different kinds of uses of it." (Notes of Norman Malcolm on one of Wittgen
stein's lectures 1946/1947 on the philosophy of psychology, in Malcolm,
Ludwig Wittgenstein. A Memoir, p. 50).
3 "Paradigms of Truthful Literary and Artistic Expressivity. Karl Kraus and

Vienna at the Turn of the Century," The Germanic Review 56, no. 2 (Spring
1981), 41-50.
4See Harry Zohn, KarlKraus (New York: Twayne, 1971), pp. 61-63; Werner
Kraft, "Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Kraus," Die neue Rundschau 72
174 Jay F. Bodine
(1961), no. 4, pp. 812-844 [also in Rebellen des Geistes (Stuttgart: Kohl
hammer, 1968), pp. 102-134]; and Paul Engelmann, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Briefe und Begegnungen (Wien/München/Oldenbourg, 1970, pp. 101-110.
5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen. Eine Auswahl aus dem

Nachlaß. Hrsg. Georg Henrik von Wright (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1977), p. 43.
6 Ibid., p. 124; Man. 168,5 (1947-1949).
7W. Kraft, "Ludwig Wittgenstein und Karl Kraus, Direkt und Indirekt," in
Gerald Stieg, Untersuchungen zum "Brenner" (Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1981),
p. 454.
8 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 43.
'Unpublished Wittgenstein Manuscripts, no. 130 (1946).
10 See my study "Die Sprachauffassung und Sprachkritik von Karl Kraus. Ein
Forschungsbericht über Untersuchungen der siebziger Jahre," Revue beige de
philologie et d'histoire 59, no. 3 (1981), 665-683, esp. 666-672.
11 See Harry Zohn, Karl Kraus, p. 65.
12"W" refers to Werke (München: Kösel, 1952ff.), vol. 3, p. 155. See also:
.. ich wähl' im Zweifelsfalle / von zweien Wegen beide" (W 7, 63-64).
"Wenn ein Gedanke in zwei Formen leben kann, so hat er es nicht so gut wie
zwei Gedanken, die in einer Form leben" (W 3, 234-236). "Der Schrift
steller muß alle Gedankengänge kennen, die sein Wort eröffnen könnte. Er
muß wissen, was mit seinem Wort geschieht. Je mehr Beziehungen dieses
eingeht, um so größer die Kunst; aber es darf nicht Beziehungen eingehen,
die dem Künstler verborgen bleiben" (W 3,122).
13See Christian J. Wagenknecht, Das Wortspiel bei Karl Kraus (Göttingen:

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966/1975), pp. 23-31.
14 Andreas Disch, Das gestaltete Wort: Die Idee der Dichtung im Werk von
Karl Kraus (Zürich: Juris, 1969), p. 179. That Kraus supposedly equated
language and things was, however, the view customarily offered, as for in
stance,.in a prominent English monograph on Kraus: "Kraus's Sprachmystik
(mysticism with regard to language) went so far that it can be compared with
the relation to language of the animistic primitives who believe in the magic
of language and hope to affect the outside world by mentioning a name.
Very much like them, Kraus felt that the word stood in the place of things"
(Wilma Iggers, Karl Kraus. A Viennese Critic of the Twentieth Century [The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967)], p. 26). Iggers refers to Leopold Liegler's
Karl Kraus und die Sprache (Wien: Länyi, 1918), pp. 6-7; but her rendition
"The word stood in the place of things" denotes something other than
Liegler's "Das Wort ist... der magische, in die Region des Geistes eingehende
Stellvertreter des Dinges" (p. 7). Liegler's formulation can be understood as
an unclear, metaphorical description of the relationship between the signi
fied, the signifier and the referent; Iggers's formulation intimates an almost
metaphysical identity between word and referent, as if words took the place
of things for Kraus. Further, Liegler claims merely that what could be
achieved for Kraus "durch die Nennung eines Wortes... in der Außenwelt,"
was merely the hope or the attempt of satirical wit, "einen erlebten Wider
spruch dadurch auszugleichen, daß er den Gegner symbolisch hinwegräumt
und seine zu Unrecht bestehende Reputation auslöscht" (p. 7). Thus, also
Liegler does not claim that language is immediately efficacious for Kraus.
15 See "Die Sprachauffassung und Sprachkritik von Karl Kraus. Ein For
schungsbericht über Untersuchungen der siebziger Jahre"; see Marcuse, One
Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), pp. 192-199.
16 Some readers may well be familiar with the following schematics from my
earlier treatment of the subject matter. Their indulgence is requested for the
partial repetition here. In some respects the treatment has been shortened and
in other respects refined for the additional insights pertinent to the juxta
position with Wittgenstein's earlier and later language views.
17Cf. John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (Cambridge: Cam

bridge University Press, 1968), pp. 403-405.
18 For a good recapitulation of these concerns, and particularly in the context

of deconstruction and Wittgenstein, see Henry Staten, Wittgenstein and
Derrida (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), pp. 1-27, esp. p. 12.
19 In this context see the well-known aphorism distinguishing between urns

and chamberpots (W 3, 341). The "positive ones" confuse or obfuscate the
differences between artistic and practical or interest-motivated expression;
176 Jay F. Bodine
between art and commodity. Such practitioners do not make their own pri
vate, "positive" purposes evident, but when their motivation and the back
ground of their utterances are reflected upon, the ethical concerns in the
matter become (often immediately) evident almost as a by-product.
20Cf. "Die Möglichkeit aller Gleichnisse, der ganzen Bildhaftigkeit unserer

Ausdrucksweise, ruht in der Logik der Abbildung" (4.015).
21 Cf. also 2.1511.
22 Although perhaps not "one and the same": "Es ist klar, daß sich die Ethik
nicht aussprechen läßt. / Die Ethik ist transzendental. / (Ethik und Ästhetik
sind Eins.)" (6.421).
23 See also P.M.S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion (London: Oxford University
Press, 1975), pp. 51-52,55, and 76-77.
24 For "sub specie aeternitatis" see P.M.S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion, pp.
59-76, esp. p. 75; as opposed to his later conceptual analysis "sub specie
humanitatis," p. 112.
25 That was Ronald Bruzina, who might not be familiar or concur with my
analysis here, but to whom I am indebted for an immensely interesting semi
nar that served as introduction to the later Wittgenstein—during the Fall
semester of 1981, at the University of Kentucky.
26 Henry Staten sees this last stylistic method as a parallel with Derrida's
deconstruction: Wittgenstein and Derrida, pp. 66 ff.
27Indeed, this point is crucial for the possibility of deconstruction as prac

ticed by Derrida, Wittgenstein and also Kraus. See Staten, pp. 1-27, esp. pp.
12-15,40, and passim.
28 The English translation does not make the same definitive statement as the
German. The full statement of §617 is: "Ich würde durch gewisse Ereignisse
in eine Lage versetzt, in der ich das alte Spiel nicht mehr fortsetzen könnte.
In der ich aus der Sicherheit des Spiels herausgerissen würde. / Ja, ist es nicht
selbstverständlich, daß die Möglichkeit eines Sprachspiels durch gewisse Tat
sachen bedingt ist?"
29Thus the ramifications of the infamous "beetle-in-the-box" example (PI

293) need to be kept within the correct bounds. Wittgenstein is not denying
phenomena (or even introspective assertions) at all. The previous section
begins "Glaub nicht immer, daß du deine Worte von Tatsachen abliest; diese
nach Regeln in Worte abbildest!" (PI 292; my emphasis). With the beetle in
the box Wittgenstein is dealing with conceptualizations encountered "when
we look into ourselves as we do philosophy" (PI 295) and that have a par
ticular usage that becomes more fundamental to their meaning than "the
facts" (PI 293). For a discussion of the much wider and deeper ramifications
of this question see e.g. Hacker, Insight and Illusion, ch. ix, pp. 251-282.
^Nicholas F. Gier, Wittgenstein and Phenomenology (Albany: SUNY Press,

1981), e.g. pp. 189-193.
31 Thus Kraus's attitude concerning the crucial role of the semiotic system in
generating utterances is ultimately at odds with structuralist and poststruc
turalist thinking, which postulates the loss of the authorial "self." A glimpse
at how Kraus envisages the "impregnation of mother 'language'" in order to
achieve high, substantial literary art is contained in the aphorism: "Der
Gedankenlose denkt, man habe nur daim einen Gedanken, wenn man ihn hat
und in Worte kleidet. Er versteht nicht, daß in Wahrheit nur der ihn hat, der
das Wort hat, in das der Gedanke hineinwächst" (W 3, 235); for the manner
of arriving at or discovering the word with its attendant thought: "Die
Sprache hat in Wahrheit der, der nicht das Wort, sondern nur den Schimmer
hat, aus dem er das Wort ersehnt, erlöst und empfängt" (W 3,328).
32 If Wittgenstein does not elaborate upon the "phenomenological" ties of

language and to what extent they are not fast, he definitely recognizes them;
yet his interest is directed more to how the language game conditions what
we grasp of the phenomenological world. See: "Wenn die Begriffsbildung sich
aus Naturtatsachen erklären läßt, sollte uns dann nicht, statt der Grammatik,
dasjenige interessieren, was ihr in der Natur zugrunde liegt? -Uns interessiert
wohl auch die Entsprechung von Begriffen mit sehr allgemeinen Naturtat
sachen. (Solchen, die uns ihrer Allgemeinheit wegen meist nicht auffallen,)
Aber unser Interesse fällt nun nicht auf diese möglichen Ursachen der Be
griffsbildung zurück;... / Wer glaubt, gewisse Begriffe seien schlechtweg die
richtigen, wer andere hätte, sähe eben etwas nicht ein, was wir einsehen-der
möge sich gewisse sehr allgemeine Naturtatsachen anders vorstellen, als wir sie
gewohnt sind, und andere Begriffsbildungen als die gewohnten werden ihm
verständlich werden. / Vergleiche einen Begriff mit einer Malweise: Ist denn
178 Jay F. Bodine
auch nur unsere Malweise willkürlich? Können wir nach Belieben eine wäh
len? (z.B. die der Ägypter). Oder handelt sich's da nur um hübsch und
häßlich?" (PI,.Part 2, no. xii, p. 230; my emphasis).
33 See Hacker for a treatment of the limits on the autonomy of grammar,

pp. .165-166.
34See Hacker, p. 230, cf. PI, § 523.
35 Kraus has a reputation for being a strict grammarian tied to "correct

usages." But as I have argued elsewhere (see "Die Sprachauffassung und
Sprachkritik von Kail Kraus...pp. 675 and 678), what is primarily cor
rect for him is not a specific coinage, but thinking through the formulation to
grasp its actual meaning, i.e. the application of "Zweifel" to the functioning
of "Geist" and "Phantasie." See "Ob ich diesem Abstand ..." (W 2, 131);
"Wie immer man nun zu dem Problem sich stellte, und gewänne man ihm
auch keine Verpflichtung zu konsequenter Praxis und keinen andern Wert
ab-der der höchste wäre-als den des Zwangs, es durchzudenken ..(W 2,
148; my emphasis). "Denn im Mutterschoß der Sprache trägt sich alles jen
seits von Richtig und Unrichtig zu" (W 2, 120). / Thinking that Kraus de
manded beautiful, classical language is also a mistake. After all, Kraus's lan
guage was the whore of the whole earth; urns and chamberpots, "der Stiefel"
and "Absatz" hardly make for beautiful language. See also "Der große Maler
muß auch mit Kot malen können ..." (W 2, 252; 114) and note Kraus's
predilection for Brecht,. Wedekind and the early Hauptmann. / Wittgen
stein's distancing himself from dogmatic philosophizing in PI § 131 can also
show his distance from a grammarian correctness in specific language for
mulations.
36 See "gedankenloses und nicht gedankenloses Sprechen" "to be compared

with the playing of a piece of music with and without thought" in § 341 ; "Es
gibt wichtige Begleitvorgänge des Redens, die dem gedankenlosen Reden oft
fehlen und es kennzeichnen. Aber sie sind nicht das Denken" (p. 218); "Wenn
ein feines Aufhorchen mir zeigt, daß ich in jenem Spiel das Wort bald so, bald
so erlebe,-zeigt es mir nicht auch, daß ich's im Fluß der Rede oft gar nicht
erlebe?-Denn, daß ich es dann auch bald so, bald so meine, intendiere,
später wohl auch so erkläre, steht ja nicht in Frage" (pp. 215-216); "Ge
schieht beim blitzartigen Denken das gleiche, wie beim nicht gedankenlosen
Sprechen,-nur äußerst beschleunigt?" (§318); "with deliberation" and
"nature of interest, of willing" ( § 174); "to point to something with attention"
(§275); performance of music "with expression" (p. 182); a Krausian (later

Brechtian) alienation likely needed to see the "hidden" aspects of things
"because of their simplicity and familiarity" (§129). Cf. §665, 358, 540,
590, 592,594,606,607; contrast the "grammar" of "denken" and "meinen"
in their various usages treated in § 330-332 and § 667-679,693.
37'"Ich sage das nicht nur, ich meine auch etwas damit.'-'Wenn man sich
überlegt, was dabei in uns vorgeht, wenn wir Worte meinen (und nicht nur
sagen) so ist es uns, als wäre dann etwas mit diesen Worten gekuppelt, wäh
rend sie sonst leerliefen.-Als ob sie gleichsam in uns eingriffen."
38 Cf. Kraus's aphorism: "Der moderne Weltuntergang wird sich so vollziehen,

daß gelegentlich der Vervollkommnung der Maschinen sich die Betriebsun
fähigkeit der Menschen herausstellt. Den Automobilen gelingt es nicht, die
Chauffeure vorwärts zu bringen" (W 3,279-280).
39 The English version is cited in the main text in order to draw attention to
the problematic translation, misleading to English readers as to the signifi
cance of "leerlaufen." § 132. "Wir wollen in unserm Wissen vom Gebrauch
der Sprache eine Ordnung herstellen: eine Ordnung zu einem bestimmten
Zweck; eine von vielen möglichen Ordnungen; nicht die Ordnung. Wir werden
zu diesem Zweck immer wieder Unterscheidungen hervorheben, die unsre
gewöhnlichen Sprachformen leicht übersehen lassen. Dadurch kann es den
Anschein gewinnen, als sähen wir es als unsre Aufgabe an, die Sprache zu
reformieren. / So eine Reform fur bestimmte praktische Zwecke, die Ver
besserung unserer Terminologie zur Vermeidung von Mißverständnissen im
praktischen Gebrauch, ist wohl möglich. Aber das sind nicht die Fälle, mit
denen wir es zu tun haben. Die Verwirrungen, die uns beschäftigen, entstehen
gleichsam, wenn die Sprache leerläuft, nicht wenn sie arbeitet." § 133. "Wir
wollen nicht das Regelsystem fur die Verwendung unserer Worte in unerhör
ter Weise verfeinern oder vervollständigen...."
40 See also E. H. Gombrich in his book^rr and Illusion (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2nd ed., 1969), p. 5 and note, where Gombrich deals with
related problematical seeing and himself refers to Wittgenstein and the rabbit
duck figure; like Wittgenstein Gombrich also relates the complex to full
understanding or seeing the complete meaning of language utterances.
41 Recall the example in Kraus's aphorism: "Je größer der Stiefel, desto
größer der Absatz" (W 3,155).
180 Jay F. Bodine
42Kuhn refers to Quine's example of the "Gavagai/Bavagai" rabbit-kind/

-part I -occurrence to illustrate the problems of recognizing what can or
should be translated from a new and foreign world view {Criticism and the
Growth of Knowledge [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974 re
prim j, p. 268; Quine, Word and Object [1960], pp. 73ff.).
43See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chi

cago Press, 2nd ed., 1970), pp. 157-159; Criticism and Growth ..., pp. 261
262. Although Thomas Kuhn was likely unfamiliar with the sections of On
Certainty dealing with the conversion or switching from one language game to
another ( § 609-620), his own description of converting to a new paradigm
has striking parallels to Wittgenstein's (in Criticism and the Growth of Knowl
edge, p. 277). A full comparison of both texts would be illuminating.
44 See the excellent comprehensive review in English by Robert C. Holub in

The German Quarterly 59, no. 1 (Winter 1986), 112-116.
45 See Neostrukturalismus, p. 354, where Frank follows Schelling's thought

and then applies the distinction between a "Realgrund" and an "Erkenntnis
grund" to the use of reflection for indicating the transcendental being of
consciousness; he concludes: "[erstens] daß das Sein dem Bewußtsein voraus
liegt und daß die Erkenntnis im Scheitern des immanenten Versuchs autono
mer Selbstbegründung besiegelt wird ... [und zweitens] daß das Wesen (oder
die Reflexion) zwar Erkenntnisgrund des Seins (und auch seines/ihres Seins)
ist, aber nicht sein Realgrund" (p. 354). "Der entscheidende Unterschied
zwischen Schleiermachers und Derridas Erklärung von Bewußtsein ist der,
daß dieser das Phänomen letzüch—und gewiß wider Willen—zu opfern ge
zwungen ist, während jener den Gedanken unserer Vertrautheit-mit-uns-selbst
zu vermitteln vermag mit dem anderen (Gedanken) der Abhängigkeit des
Selbst von der Sprachstruktur. / Diese letztere Möglichkeit besteht in der Tat,
wenn man sich [daran] erinnert,... daß es nämlich (wenigstens) zwei Formen
von Abhängigkeit und entsprechend von Begründung gibt: Abhängigkeiten
gewisser Sachverhalte von Gedanken und Abhängigkeiten gewisser Sachver
halte von anderen Sachverhalten. Erstere nennt die Sprache der Metaphysik
Ideal- oder Erkenntnisgründe, letztere Real- oder Seinsgründe (rationes
cognoscendi versus rationes essendi)" (pp. 359-360). 'Tatsächlich kann man
aber ein präreflexives Vertrautsein des Bewußtseins mit sich annehmen, ohne
in vergleichbare Zirkel (wie Hegel und Heidegger) sich zu verstricken und ohne
die Nicht-Identität der Reflexion mit sich zu bestreiten. Dazu muß man sich
nur klarmachen, daß alles, wovon Bewußtsein besteht, nicht selbst in die
Immanenz des Bewußtseins fällt. Es ist eben ein falsches Erklärungsmodell,

das Selbstbewußtsein als einen Fall von Reflexion: also als die ausdrückliche
Beziehung eines Bewußtseins auf sich als seinen eigenen Gegenstand, be
schreibt. Gibt man diese in sich widersprüchliche und zirkelhafte Vorstellung
auf, kann man sehen, daß das, was wir die Nicht-Identität des Selbst nannten,
nur in seiner ek-statischen Entwurf-Struktur gründet, keineswegs aber in einer
Absenz von Vertrautheit-mit-sich. Ek-statisch bezogen auf den Gegenstand
seiner Entwürfe, koinzidiert das Subjekt niemals absolut mit seinem Sein
(dJi. mit seinem Geworden-Sein); aber es hat durchaus ein Bewußtsein seiner
als eines mit sich nicht koinzidierenden Entwurfs" (pp. 365-366). Frank also
likens the distinction to Sartre's concept "être été" (pp. 354-355). Further,
see p. 486, and generally "Der Text und sein Stil. Schleiermachers Sprach
theorie" in Das Sagbare und das Unsagbare (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1980), pp. 13-35.
46 See also Das Sagbare und das Unsagbare, p. 188, where Frank treats the
counterpart to Derrida's "différanciation" in Gadamer, calling it the "Super
Subject of Language"-namely: "Es hilft nichts zu beteuern (wie Gadamer es
tut), daß man dieses Super-Subjekt der Sprache 'als Substanz denke' (im
Hegeischen Sinne); das anonyme 'Es', welches nun an der Stelle des aufge
hobenen Subjekts handelt, hat listigerweise alle seine Merkmale in sich
absorbiert: Spontaneität, Einheitlichkeit/Kontinuität, Vertrautheit mit
sich.... Es ist, mit einem Wort, selbsthaft organisiert und kommt als Alterna
tive zum klassischen Transzendentalsubjekt nicht in Frage."
47 See generally Hacker's treatment in the section "The Private Language

Argument, Self-Consciousness aid the Foundations of Knowledge," Insight
and Illusion, pp. 277-282, esp. pp. 78-79.
^"Heinrich Heine, Karl Kraus and 'die Folgen.' A Test Case of Literary
Texts, Historical Reception and Receptive Aesthetics," Colloquia Germanica
17, no. 1/2 (1984), 14-59, esp. 21-22 and 49-53.
49In section vi, pp. 48-53, particularly p. 50; see E. D. Hirsch, Validity in
Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), esp. chapter 1, and
The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1976), p. 90.
50See William K. Wimsatt, "The Intentional Fallacy," The Verbal Icon

(Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1954), pp. 3-18.
182 Jay F. Bodine
51 See Manfred Frank's inclusion here (Neostrukturalismus, pp. 567-568) of

"one of the deepest impulses of critical theory" with two lengthy quotations
from Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialektik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1966).
52 See "Motivation ist nicht Kausation bzw. Nezessitation...{Neostruk

turalismus, p. 554).
53"Verstehen besteht.. .nicht darin, eine semantische Deduktion aus präe

tablierten Prämissen ... zu vollziehen, sondern ganz im Gegenteil darin, eine
motivierte, aber grammatisch-pragmatisch unabsehbare Sinntransformation
als das, was sie ist: als Novation, in einer ebenso freien und schöpferischen
'Divination' zu reproduzieren. Das Präfix re- im Ausdruck 'Re-produktion'
meint nicht die Rückkehr zu einer vermeintlichen Authentizität des ur
sprünglichen oder des vom Autor intendierten Wortsinns (der wäre, wenn es
ihn gäbe, nur hypothetisch rekonstruierbar, ohne die Sicherheit einer Veri
fizierbarkeit; und er wird ferner durch den Sinnentwurf des Autors gerade
überschritten); es meint, daß ich die Kreativität des Sinnentwurfs als solche
nachvollziehen muß, will ich verstehen, daß und inwiefern das individuelle
Moment nicht in der Koinzidenz mit der überschrittenen Bedeutung liegen
kann (aus logischen Gründen), sondern nur in dem Abstand, den es zwischen
der alten und der neuen Bedeutung gehöhlt hat. In diesem Sinne ist Ver
stehen re-produktiv: Nachvollzug nicht der ehemaligen Bedeutung, .sondern
des Sinnentwurfs, der die alte Bedeutung im Entwurf einer neuen des-aktuali
siert, ent-gegenwärtigt und irremediabel aufspaltet" (Neostrukturalismus,
pp. 556-557). When "intention" is taken as an additional aspect of "sense
projection" to be interpreted, Frank's objections to the common usage of the
term as conceived in a setting of determinate meaning, do not apply. Kraus's
notion of "Ursprung" or the "reachievement of original meaning" can very
appropriately be understood in this context also, as a later effecting (ein
Nachvollziehen) of the same "creativity of sense projection."
54 "[Es ist] unmöglich,, das Vollkommene Verstehen des Stils'... in Aus

drücken zu charakterisieren, die sich an der Metaphorik der Entschlüsselungs
arbeit orientieren: Es gibt keinen kontinuierlichen Übergang vom System zu
seiner Anwendung, insofern nie auszuschließen ist, daß die angewandten
Zeichen das kodifizierte Gesamt der Sprache ... semantisch neu interpretiert
haben. Ein im Akt der Rede erst geschaffener Sinn (ein 'schöpferischer Akt'
.. ,)-dJi. ein Sinn, der sich erst im Augenblick der Rede als die passende
Interpretation seiner Signifikantenkette definiert-kann nicht mit den Mitteln
des Repertoires beschrieben werden, dessen Bannkreis er gerade überschritten

hat.... / In Schleiermachers Sprache steht der Begriff Divination' für eben
diese Einsicht, daß Sprachsysteme von sich her niemals einen bestimmten
Interpretanten für die aktuelle Sprachverwendung vorgeben und der einzelne
Sinn ... prinzipiell nicht aufgrund von discovery procedures vom Typ einer
Deduktion / Dekodierung abgeleitet werden kann. / Der schlagende Beweis
für die alltägliche Realität solcher Divination ist das Spracherlernen der
Kinder. Sie müssen im Wortsinne 'ursprünglich verstehen'; denn 'sie haben die
Sprache noch nicht [also auch nicht irgendwelche anzuwendenden Regeln],
sondern suchen sie erst" (Das Sagbare und das Unsagbare, pp. 30-31). Along
with the pertinence of the theoretical question of understanding, the coinci
dences with Kraus and Wittgenstein-especially the "aufleuchten" or dawning
of a meaning (PI, p. 194) and "kindliches ursprüngliches Verstehen"-is
striking.
55 "Wenn das Verständnis wesentlich mangelhaft ist.... so folgt daraus den

noch nicht, daß im Ganzen der Kommunikation kein Sinn sich feststellen
ließe, noch auch, daß Interpretationen-weil ohne letztes Kriterium-will
kürlich oder nichtnachvollziehbar wären. Interpretative Hypothesen sind stets
motiviert oder motivierbar und könnten anders weder Geltung beanspruchen
noch kommunikativ sich durchsetzen (wie sie es doch von Tag zu Tag tun).
Ist die Aufgabe des Verstehens, wie Schleiermacher sagt, nicht 'mechanisier
bar,' so bleibt sie doch, wie jede vernünftige Hypothese im Bereich der exakt
genannten Wissenschaften, einerseits begründbar, andererseits rechenschafts
fähig. Der Interpret wird stets bemüht sein, den innovativen Akt mitzuvoll
ziehen und auszuweisen, durch welchen-seiner Divination gemäß .. —der
Text oder die Äußerung im Text (bzw. im Gespräch) oder auch nur ein be
stimmter individueller Wortgebrauch innerhalb der Äußerung sich gegen einen
'état de langue' abheb[t]...." (Neostrukturalismus, p. 567).
56 See the discussion concerning "Metaphysik" in Neostrukturalismus, pp.

77-78, 120, and the general elaboration in Frank's lectures five and six (pp.
88-134).
"See Frank's "four critical questions posed to Heidegger's history paradigm,

insofar as it finds replication in his French [poststructuralist] followers"
(Neostrukturalismus, pp. 127-134); e.g.: "[D]as, was bislang als Leistung des
'konstitutiven Subjekts' angesehen wurde, [muß] nunmehr der Struktur
selbst zugeschrieben werden: nämlich die Fähigkeit der Selbstreflexion und
die Fähigkeit der praktischen Veränderung. Beide Fähigkeiten gehen jetzt an
184 Jay F. Bodine
die Struktur (oder das Feld oder die diskursive Formation) über, ohne daß
zugleich ein grundsätzlicher Einwand gegen das Theorem der Praxis und der
Selbstreflexion geleistet wäre" (pp. 127-128)-oder: "eine gemeinsame
Quelle der hermeneutischen und der neostrukturalistischen Rede vom einge
setzten Blick ... Heideggers Gleichnis von der Seins-Lichtung. Das Gleichnis
wül sagen, daß der Auslegungs-Rahmen, innerhalb dessen wir unsere Bezie
hungen zur Welt und zu den anderen Subjekten leben, nicht das Werk unserer
Souveränität ist, sondern eine Schickung des Seins, das sich uns eben gerade
unter dieser bestimmten Interpretation zeigt (oder: sehen läßt)" (p. 130).
58See Staten, e.g. chapter 2, "Wittgenstein Deconstructs"; but Wittgenstein is

vöid of the poststructuralist epistemology that rejects the discerning role of
individual consciousness.
59"Warum die Fackel nicht erscheint" (f 890-905, pp. 1-315; July 1934);
(Die Dritte Walpurgisnacht (München: Kösel, 1952; written and ready for
publication, 1933). See Karl Menges, "Karl Kraus und der Austrofaschismus,"
Colloquia Germanica 14, no. 4 (1981); and Jochen Stremmel, "Dritte Wal
purgisnacht. " Über einen Text von Karl Kraus (Bonn: Boui'ïr, 1982).
60 For the present see my "Sprachauffassung und Sprachkritik von Karl

Kraus" (pp. 671-672); pp. 17-20 of "Heinrich Heine, Karl Kraus and 'die
Folgen'"; and pp. 284-290 of "Karl Kraus. Sprache, Literatur und Wirklich
keit (Dissertation, Princeton University, 1973).
61 The incorrect contrast Marcuse makes there between Wittgenstein and

Kraus has explicitly carried over and continued in, for instance, one of the
most important interpretations of Heinrich Böll's Die verlorene Ehre der
Katharina Blum, namely in Eberhard Scheiffele's, "Kritische Sprachanalyse in
Heinrich Bolls "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum,' " Basis. Jahrbuch für
deutsche Gegenwartsliteratur 9 (1979), 169-187 and 268-269.
62 It also furnishes a corrective to more strictly academically philosophical

misinterpretations, such as those from Karsten Harries Mid Paul Ricoeur
although this point will have to be elaborated upon later in a more exhaustive
treatment.
63 For a cursory overview of Kraus's receptive history, see my "Heinrich

Heine, Karl Kraus and 'die Folgen,'" pp. 17-20; "Die Sprachauffassung und
Sprachkritik ..."; and Josef Quack, Bemerkungen zum Sprachverständnis
von Karl Kraus (Bonn: Bouvier, 1976), pp. 177-231. Quack also raises the
question of the relationship between Kraus and Wittgenstein and treats a
difference in emphasis in the endeavors of the two as having greater import
than that explicated here (pp. 228-231); a more exhaustive analysis could
treat this point in greater length.
64See generality the discussion in "Heinrich Heine, Karl Kraus and 'die Fol
gen,'" pp. 20-23.
65 "Man muß der Menschheit so lange mit "Paradoxen' auf den Schädel
hämmern, bis sie merkt, daß es die einzigen Wahrheiten sind, und daß witzige
Antithesen bloß dann entstehen, wenn eine frühreife Wahrheit mit dem
Blödsinn der Zeit zusammenprallt" (W 11,300).
66See e.g.: "Das Verständnis meiner Arbeit ist erschwert durch die Kenntnis
meines Stoffes ..." (W 3, 322); cf. "Nur jenen, die fern in Zeit oder Land, /
wird der Inhalt meiner Satiren bekannt. / Nachbar Meier mich einen Klein
geist nennt, weil er den Müller persönlich kennt" (W 7,133).
67 In the context of trying to understand Kraus it is often necessary to refer

to the principles Bertrand Russell elaborated upon for the interpretation of a
philosopher or any thinker. See A History of Western Philosophy (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1945,1965 printing), p. 39.
68 See generally the similar problems of contradictory interpretations and con

clusions in the companion study to this investigation, namely "Heinrich
Heine, Karl Kraus and 'die Folgen.' A Test Case of Literary Texts, Historical
Reception and Receptive Aesthetics," Colloquia Germanica 17, no. 1/2
(1984), 14-59.

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Association of Austrian Studies

Karl Kraus, Ludwig Wittgenstein and "Poststructual" Paradigms of Textual Understanding

One of Ludwig Wittgenstein's greatest later concerns was that of being

Modern Austrian Literature, Volume 22, Nos. 3/4,1989 143

alert interested parties to the possibility of achieving a more adequate under

truthful" world view ("Sehweise") achieved through the Krausian conceptua

philosophically or even systematically the metaphysical or epistemological

Until the beginning of the 1970s the general understanding of Kraus's

pithy, yet manifold artistic meaning—illustrating also the problems in under

(sets Worte or forms into (envisages, imagines refer

WORT ===== WESEN

By the end of the 1960s some commentators were beginning to recog

Sprachmagier, und undenkbar wäre es, daß er je versucht haben könnte,

The individual comparing of language content with one's own interpersonal

most crucial of the aspects in Kraus's "Sehweise" ("aspects" understood in

"Wesen," one of the breakthroughs in arriving at a more adequate under

of checking the conceptualizations behind the utterances, the calling into

has to compare the utterance with the interhuman, socio-political realities.

To someone familiar with Kraus's conception of language and with the

world, but on numerous occasions he speaks of recognizing his world pri

ceived through sufficient individual reflection-all of which in the Tractatus

However, Wittgenstein's thought ultimately developed into a basically

formulation of their point exemplify the point.26

fui. The problematical relationship of Wittgenstein's language games with

Kraus made numerous statements concerning the influence of the inter

"Phantasie" (that the usage be linguistically logical—and everything which

Es gibt in der Sprache nichts Falsches, das die Sprache nicht zu

3) A third major complex paralleled in the two men's conceptualiza

This complex in the later Wittgenstein-which is, of course, also a con

(weakly rendered as "speech with thought" and "talking without thinking" in

§ 132. We want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of

prevent misunderstandings in practice, is perfectly possible. But

To be sure, it is not Wittgenstein's purpose "to refine or complete [in an un

a) The first point to be made is a reiteration on paradigms. "Seeing"

grounded in the differentiations or "marques" (both "différences" and

can ultimately be determined.

In 1980 Manfred Frank spoke of radical misunderstandings of Schleier

To be sure, often eminent commentators will not immediately make

Wittgenstein's approach concentrating more on semantic analysis and

Krausian sense) "creativity of sense projection" (Neostrukturalismus, pp.

2Cf. Wittgenstein: "What I give is the morphology of the use of an expres

3 "Paradigms of Truthful Literary and Artistic Expressivity. Karl Kraus and

5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen. Eine Auswahl aus dem

6 Ibid., p. 124; Man. 168,5 (1947-1949).

8 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 43.

'Unpublished Wittgenstein Manuscripts, no. 130 (1946).

11 See Harry Zohn, Karl Kraus, p. 65.

13See Christian J. Wagenknecht, Das Wortspiel bei Karl Kraus (Göttingen:

17Cf. John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (Cambridge: Cam

18 For a good recapitulation of these concerns, and particularly in the context

19 In this context see the well-known aphorism distinguishing between urns

20Cf. "Die Möglichkeit aller Gleichnisse, der ganzen Bildhaftigkeit unserer

21 Cf. also 2.1511.

27Indeed, this point is crucial for the possibility of deconstruction as prac

29Thus the ramifications of the infamous "beetle-in-the-box" example (PI

^Nicholas F. Gier, Wittgenstein and Phenomenology (Albany: SUNY Press,

32 If Wittgenstein does not elaborate upon the "phenomenological" ties of

33 See Hacker for a treatment of the limits on the autonomy of grammar,

34See Hacker, p. 230, cf. PI, § 523.

35 Kraus has a reputation for being a strict grammarian tied to "correct

36 See "gedankenloses und nicht gedankenloses Sprechen" "to be compared

(§275); performance of music "with expression" (p. 182); a Krausian (later