Brecht ­and Wittgenstein: Gawping – Seeing – Weltanschauen

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• Michael Nedo, Richard Raatzsch and Martin Kusch
• Saturday 13 October 2007, 11:00-14:30
• Richard Eden Suite - West Court, Clare Hall.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact rw335.

For more details, please go to www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk

11.00 Film

Galileo based on Charles Laughton’s 1947 adaptation of Brechts play, directed by Joseph Losey and produced by Ely Landau in 1975, starring John Gilgud, Tom Conti and Chaim Topol

Break with snacks and wine

13.30 Discussion and Presentations by Michael Nedo, Richard Raatzsch and Martin Kusch

A resemblance between Brecht and Wittgenstein has not yet been discussed in the literature. We want to start such a discussion and test how far this resemblance might extend.

Brecht, Galileo: The universe has lost its centre overnight, and in the morning it had countless ones. …

Galileo to Andrea, the eleven-year old son of his housekeeper Andrea: But I can see that the sun stops in a different place in the evening from where it is in the morning. So it cannot stand still! Never ever. Galileo: You can see! What do you see? You see nothing. You just gawp. Gawping isn’t seeing. …

Wittgenstein: “Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis?” I (Elizabeth Anscombe, a friend and pupil of Wittgenstein) replied: “I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth.” “Well, he asked, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?”

This talk is part of the Clare Hall Talks series.

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