Витгенщайн за съзерцанието sub specie aeternitatis
Wittgenstein on Contemplation sub specie aeternitatis

Summary/Abstract: The paper is a commentary on 6.45 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus which reads: “To view the world sub specie aeterni[tatis] is to view it as a whole – a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole – it is this that is mystical.” My claim is that this section of the Tractatus provides a key to Wittgenstein’s epistemology. It claims that there are different kinds of knowledge. On the one hand is the knowledge of facts; it gives rise to science. On the other hand is the philosophical, logical and mathematical knowledge, as well as the aesthetic and mystical experience. The first kind of knowledge is discursive, the second is intuitive. In particular, whereas sciences cognize the connections of objects and facts, not the objects themselves, the other kinds of knowledge contemplate single objects, of different size. Mystical experience, for example, contemplates the whole world “as limited whole”, aesthetic experience contemplates a single object sub specie aeternitatis, while the logician contemplates segments of the logically perfect language. Another (Schopenhauerian) difference between these two types of knowledge is that while scientific mind investigates the passive world as idea, the other kinds of knowledge are constructs of the will of the cognizing subject. Unfortunately, since the source of the scientific knowledge is the willing subject, traces of this will are also seen in the scientific image. Moreover, these traces are usually interpreted as effects of God in the empirical world who works as the master of our destiny. Wittgenstein insists that this is a false understanding of God which is to be discarded.

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