What happened when Ludwig Wittgenstein applied his philosophy to architecture

The house that Ludwig built was not cosy. Wittgenstein forbade carpets and curtains. Rooms were to be lit by naked bulbs, and door handles and radiators were left unpainted. The floors were of grey-black polished stone, the walls of light ochre.

The Wittgenstein House was very Viennese - its absence of decoration came from a conviction that Austrian ornament had become as unhealthy as Viennese sachertorte cake. Fin de siècle Vienna was a city of aesthetic and moral decay and, at the same time, of creatively frenetic reaction against that decadence: Schoenberg's atonal music insisted that everything that could be expressed had been expressed by tonal music; Loos's architecture railed against decoration; Freud argued that unconscious forces seethed below a purportedly ordered and elegant society. Established values were being turned upside-down in Vienna. According to Karl Kraus, Vienna was a "research laboratory for world destruction".

Wittgenstein and Freud

Wittgenstein says, Freudian psychoanalysis is based in myth, its application to actual psychological problems does not, indeed cannot, resolve them. Instead, all it can do is clarify them or present them in a different light. Implicit in my argument is that this is how Wittgenstein thought of the results of psychoanalysis, much like he thought of the application of his philosophical technique to philosophical problems, especially those of metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. As such, Wittgenstein is also subverting a larger myth: that the insights gained in psychoanalysis lead to the scientific resolution of psychological problems.

Freud considered his approach to be scientific. Wittgenstein considered both his and Freud's approach to be philosophical, not scientific.

Weltanschauung. Freud's agenda, Bouveresse says, was "to eliminate metaphysics in favor of the 'scientific' conception of the world." Wittgenstein thought such agendas naive.

Theory. Freud attempted to construct a theory that explained the range of psychological behavior. Wittgenstein thought misguided the construction of a single philosophical theory, and he may have thought that psychoanalysis lacked the power to explain the range of psychic behavior.

The Myth of Psychoanalysis: Wittgenstein Contra Freud

The Myth of the Scientific Solution

The ambiguity lies in Wittgenstein's praising of Freud's theory while repeatedly condemning it as unscientific, an ambiguity that has led at least one scholar astray: Grahame Lock concludes, as quoted by Jacques Bouveresse in Wittgenstein Reads Freud, that "Wittgenstein is the `disciple' of Freud who seems to do nothing but raise objections to his master."9 Even though Wittgenstein indeed raises objections to Freud, many of them areleveled against Freud's view of his own theory, not against the explanatory power of the theory itself. For Wittgenstein, psychoanalysis is based in myth, not science. But this position must not be taken as merely a criticism of Freud, as Lock has done. Although it is an attack on Freud's view that his theory is a science, it is also a glorification of its inventiveness in going beyond a scientific theory to explain the scientifically unexplainable. Wittgenstein believed Freud "had something to say."10 Freud, Wittgenstein would have said, "invented a line of thinking."11 And it is a view of Freud's psychoanalysis that bodes with Wittgenstein's view of his own developed philosophical method, leaving Wittgenstein to see himself as a disciple of Freud, even though he did not believe he had himself invented a new line of thinking.

Enrique Krauze - Redeemers - Foreign Affairs

Enrique Krauze warns against the temptations to seek redemption through revolutionary violence, heroic martyrdom, and political absolutism. He also helps readers understand the anti-USA in Latin America -- “the abstract ideological disdain of the Southern Cone and the grievance-fueled resentments of the Caribbean”.

Chomsky on 9/11 ten years later.

The debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

Adam Curtis -All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (BBC), Adam Curtis' new and insightful documentary, traced links between Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Bill Clinton's affair, the September 11 attacks, the economies of the Far East and the financial crisis.

Rand's Objectivism, we are told, has given birth to a culture of selfishness among the world's most powerful. For the uninitiated it discourages altruism and pushes for every man and woman to become solely selfish beings, driving their own interests to the bitter end. There is no time for weakness, religion or irrationality and each person should make their priority their own happiness. Rand set out this belief in her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Generally, critics hated her but she amassed a cult following nonetheless.

Enrique Krauze -Redeemers

Latin America has been of vital importance to the United States almost since the birth of our nation, and the significance of this relationship has only increased in recent decades. But mutual understanding between these regions is lacking, even as Latin Americans are striving to promote the values of democracy in their native countries and beyond. Why has this process proved to be such a struggle, and what does the future of the region hold?

Krauze explores the Latin American intellectual tradition by deftly animating its decisive figures, from Octavio Paz to Che Guevara, José Vasconcelos to Hugo Chávez, and inscribing them upon a vivid landscape of patriotism, opportunism, morality, and avarice—and of love, honor, loyalty, and identity. Redeemers delivers an unparalleled explication of the roots of ideology and action in Latin America today.