What we must pass over in silence

Abstract

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Bertrand Russell’s views on mysticism show their intense interest in this subject and how they explored its nature and possibilities. Wittgenstein, who had abandoned his Catholic faith as a teenager, became a religious searcher, which began from his fears of the terrors of war. He had enlisted as a soldier to fight for Austro-Hungary during which his terror of war led him to pray to God for refuge. The fortuitous discovery of Leo Tolstoy’s book, The Gospel in Brief, opened Wittgenstein’s mind to the importance of Jesus and led him to value Christianity once more. Russell’s interest in mysticism appears in a published article written in 1914 and seems to have been one of curiosity, rather than religious. From a young age, Russell became extremely interested in mathematics and he came to perceive that this subject might be called mathematical mysticism. In both cases, Wittgenstein and Russell shared a keen interest in mysticism, with Wittgenstein concluding in his Tractatus that the mystical was transcendent while Russell chose to examine how mysticism and empiricism might complement each other.