by Lars Iyer
What will he say when the last words of philosophy are spoken?, Wittgenstein wonders. What will he say, when the spell of philosophy has been broken?
He’ll say nothing, he says. He’ll open his eyes. He’ll look up at the sky. He’ll laugh.
After philosophy, thoughts will be common, Wittgenstein says. Thought will belong to all, like the sunlight, like the rain.
After philosophy, there will be nothing important at all, he says—everything will be important. Everything will take on significance. The light on a particular afternoon will be as rich as the collected works of Kant.
• • •
To come across philosophy rusting in a field, like an old piece of farm machinery. To chance upon philosophy as one might the fossilised carcass of some great prehistoric beast. That’s what he wants, he says. To decommission philosophy. To place it out of use, as former terrorists do their weapons …
For two and a half thousand years, philosophy has been turning like a cat, wanting to lie down. Two and a half thousand years of thought seeking rest, seeking sleep, seeking death …
But soon thought will lie down, he says. Soon, philosophy will lie down.
Only at its end will we know what philosophy was, he says. Only at the brink of its cessation will philosophy reveal itself.
On the last day, philosophy will stand silhouetted against non-philosophy. Against the storms of non-philosophy.
On the last day, thought will lie down with the opposite of thought. On the last day, thought and the world will be as one.
On the last day, there will be nothing left to think. On the last day, thought itself will become redundant.
At the end, after the end, we will use the Critique of Pure Reason as a kilo-weight, the Tractatus as scrap paper. Our children will doodle on the works of Plato, and make paper boats from the pages of Spinoza. They will fold the Monadology into a paper hat …
The end of logic. The end of philosophy.
His head will empty, when it comes, he says. His head will be empty, as our heads are already empty.
And philosophy will be revealed as what it is, and what it always was—nothing. And logic will have at last come into its own—as nothing.
The end will see the hollowing-out of philosophy, he says. The voiding of logic. Until it becomes the empty shell through which nothingness roars like a distant sea.
Three AM. The hard white light of Accident and Emergency. Guthrie, propped between Ede and I, apparently concussed. Staging the death of Empedocles was bound to have its risks.
An indignant rah, demanding to be attended to straight away. A suicidal Sloane, wheeled straight into resus. A Varsity face, moaning loudly, a patch over his right eye. Some rugby beefcake bluelighted in after a drinking game—it’s not a good night unless you end up in A&E, he bellows.
EDE (pissed off): I wish he’d fucking shut up—fucking caveman.
Cries as minor fractures are set. As local anaesthetic is injected. Groaning. Wailing. The malty smell of urine.
The doctor shines a light in Guthrie’s eye, and disappears again.
EDE (more pissed off): Fuck this.
We stare at the no-win, no-fee solicitors’ notices. At the in-house hospital magazine. At the ward philosophy poster—striving for your health in a holistic way … encompassing your disabilities … understanding your cultural sensitivities …
EDE (completely pissed off): Let’s just leave him here, for fuck’s sake. He won’t know the difference.
GUTHRIE/EMPEDOCLES: Can’t you see where you are looking? You see the earth, a pit, and you see only these miserable laws, which are laws of the dead. Don’t you look to the laws of the gods?
We prop Guthrie against the wall. Snatches of Empedocles follow us to the door.
• • •
Out—into the night. The sense of having made the greatest of escapes.
Our friendships are not deep, we agree. We hardly know what friendship means. We happen to come together, that’s all. We coincided, that’s all. We were going in the same direction for a while, and we made the best of it.
Cambridge is only an interlude, we agree. Cambridge is a corridor, a passageway. And we’ve milled about together, waiting for life to begin.
After Cambridge, we’ll fall out of contact. After Cambridge, we’ll unfriend each other on Facebook. After Cambridge, we’ll forget each other’s names. Each other’s voices. After Cambridge, we’ll begin to confuse each other with someone else.
We fell into step with one another for a while, that is all. We passed the time …
The Snowball.
Ede and I, in our dress suits, knocking on Wittgenstein’s door.
He looks tall when he answers. Neat. No jacket. White shirt. Pleated trousers, worn high on the waist.
How fresh his room seems! His floor—how it shines! I picture myself walking across it in bare feet.
WITTGENSTEIN (smiling): Your ties are all wrong.
He reaches out just as Ede lifts his chin, adjusting the angle of Ede’s bow tie.
How intense he is! As though bow ties were a problem in logic!
WITTGENSTEIN (smiling again): There!
My turn. I look upwards, at the panelling on the ceiling.
WITTGENSTEIN: That’s better. Now, off you go and lose your souls.
Bubble machine and bouncy castle …
Girls in ball gowns, leaping in their tights. Rahs in dinner jackets, jumping in their socks.
And whooping. Everybody whooping. It’s quite the new thing, whooping.
This would be the right moment for a campus massacre, we agree.
• • •
Cocaine. Tequila. More cocaine. More tequila. Our noses tingle. Our throats are hoarse from shouting. Our heads are dizzy …
The entertainment arrives: children’s TV presenters, reality TV stars. Are we all having a good time tonight? Have we all been good boys and girls? Have we written our lists for Santa? Have we gobbled up all the chocolates in our advent calendars?
More cocaine and tequila, to numb the pain. Have we all taken quite enough drugs and alcohol?
Doyle’s come as Bad Santa, and Mulberry, as his demonic elf, with a sack full of laughing gas balloons. We whoop ourselves crazy …
• • •
The park, 3.00 AM. Titmuss, lying in the flowers, chanting quietly. Guthrie, in Doyle’s Santa hat, kebab grease around his mouth. Ede and I on the bench, sharing a bottle of vodka.
EDE: He likes you.
ME: Who?
EDE: Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein likes you.
ME: What do you mean, likes me?
EDE: I mean likes you, you idiot. It’s obvious.
ME: Fuck off. No way.
EDE: It’s your boyish charm. Your innocence. You really are an innocent, Peters.
ME: There’s no way he likes me.
EDE (sagely, draining the last of the vodka): That’s why he likes you, Peters: because you say things like that.
In my dream, snow falls on Wittgenstein’s sleeping body. Snow covers him, like a crisp white bedroom sheet. But it covers his shoulders and his arms and his head, too.
In my dream, he is stirring, his eyes are opening. His head falls to one side. He’s facing—me.
In my dream, his eyes plead. His mouth moves, but I cannot hear what he says.
In my dream, I wipe the snow from his brow. I wipe it from his body.
In my dream, I kneel at his side, like a supplicant.
King Street, then Park Street. Ede and I, a bottle of gin in each pocket.
We’ve outgrown this place, we agree. We’re sick of it. We’ve explored the lanes, we’ve walked the courtyards. We’ve seen behind the high walls and the iron doors.
How many times have we drunk ourselves silly in the Maypole? How many times have we scavenged for alcohol after closing time? How many times have we raided the communal kitchens last thing at night? How many times have we pissed in our sinks? How many times have we stepped over vomit? How
many times have we done an all-night essay blitz, high on energy drinks and Pro Plus tablets?
We’re bored. Bored of study. Bored of preparing for life. Bored of waiting for life to begin.
ME: There’s one thing for sure—I’m not taking a fucking gap year!
EDE: Fuck gap years! Reality! That’s what we need! We need to know what we’re up against!
The high street. Office workers out for their Christmas parties. Women in round-toed high heels and maxi dresses and ankle bracelets. Men in Fred Perry shirts …
EDE: That’s you next year, Peters—Fred Perry shirt, and a look of damnation …
We imagine my office-job future. Office rivalries. Office flirtations. Conversations about cars. And football. And last night’s TV. Watching the clock. Wandering the corridors. Cold-calling clients on a Saturday morning. Telemarketing on a Sunday night. Pulling all-nighters to impress the boss. Out on the town with people I can’t stand. Saving up for a starter house in an exurb. Hanging myself in the company toilets.
EDE: Not to worry, Peters. It won’t be much better for me …
He’s going to be one of the bad Edes, Ede says. These are probably his last weeks of lucidity. He’s going to go the way of Guthrie. The way of Scroggins. Drunk every night by cocktail hour. Then rehab. Then interventions. Then 360s. Then suicide attempts. Then electroshock treatment. Then, finally, a shotgun to the head.
EDE (at the top of his voice): Fuck this!
ME (louder): FUCK THIS!
Only one more term to go. Only one more. The world is rushing to meet us. The world is crowding our vision. The world is flaming towards us, like a comet. When will it strike? When will it burst across our skies?
Terrible, decisive things are about to happen. Knives are glittering in the darkness. Teeth are glittering in the darkness. The night, the whole night, is opening wide.
We’re so vulnerable! So exposed! We’re drowning in possibility. In potential.
We’re lost in time. Lost to time. We’re abandoned to the wilds of time. Wandering in time’s night …
Last class before the Christmas break. Wittgenstein brings us Lebkuchen and wine.
He talks softly, as he always does. His intent, after all, is so utterly at odds with loudness. But today, his voice drops almost to a whisper.
An old Jewish legend tells that there are nine righteous people alive in the world at any moment, Wittgenstein says—but he likes to imagine there are nine righteous thinkers—thinkers who will know what it means for philosophy to have ended.
Nine righteous thinkers, who will know the burden that has been lifted … Nine last seers, who will feel the relief of the end, who will know themselves to have been unburdened from thinking and from the task of thinking …
Nine last logicians, who will be free to walk out beneath the summer sun … Nine last visionaries, who will emerge, blinking, from their thinking-shacks and thought-burrows … Nine righteous ones, who will open their eyes at last, who will breathe the air to the bottom of their lungs …
Nine righteous philosophers, who will laugh at last—who will really laugh, like children … Nine righteous thinkers, who only now will step into life, into the fullness of life.
A last walk on the Backs. Wittgenstein ahead, in deep discussion with Okulu.
Ede and I, light-headed from the wine …
We imagine the righteous Inuit, a virtuoso of despair, thinking about thinking as she crosses the dark ice on her snowmobile. Soon, the sun will rise for the first time in six months. Soon, the post-philosophical sun will rise. Soon, there will come the post-philosophical dawn …
We imagine the righteous Siberian, eyes bloodshot, ruined by alcohol. Ruined by philosophy. Downing a quart of vodka every morning before breakfast, to be done with his thoughts. Soon, the bottle will fall from his hands. Soon, he will reach a new kind of drunkenness, a new kind of sobriety …
We imagine the righteous sannyasin, a profound cousin of Chakrabarti, having died to the world, having condemned himself to wander until the end of philosophy. Soon, he will arrive at his destination. Soon, he will realise that he has already arrived; that the world, his place of exile, is everywhere his home …
We imagine the righteous mental patient, zoned out on meds. Half awake for years, blurry-headed for years, but knowing that soon, it will be time to throw away her tranquilisers—that soon, it will be time to exit the asylum, and be welcomed in the world as the prodigal sister, the measure of sanity …
We imagine the righteous pair of philosopher-saints, living at the edges of the Egyptian desert. Philosopher-lovers, completing each other’s thoughts, each other’s sentences. Soon, they’ll kiss away philosophy. Soon, very soon, they’ll weep away philosophy …
We imagine the righteous AI, blinking into consciousness, thinking electronic thoughts in Bell Laboratories. And, in a nanosecond, exhausting every philosophical move. Every existential move … Soon, it will sink back into blissful non-consciousness. Soon, it will rejoin the inanimate world …
We imagine the righteous philosopher-dolphin, diving through the waves—wanting only to love diving through the waves, wanting only to love the sun on its back … Soon, it will be reunited with the elements. Soon, it will be no more than a part of the sea, diving through the sea …
We imagine God Himself, Wittgenstein’s God, born of torment as the opposite of torment, born of pain as the opposite of pain, knowing that the time has come to vacate His throne. Soon, divinity will be reborn on earth. Soon, the godhead will show itself in the sky …
Grantchester meadows.
Ede proposes we create a living orrery.
Chakrabarti is the earth. Okulu, the moon, begins an orbit around him. Then Chakrabarti and Okulu begin to orbit Guthrie, the sun.
Doyle/Mercury runs rapidly round Guthrie, and Ede/Venus does the same a little farther out, but both inside Chakrabarti/Earth’s trajectory. I am Mars, running in a wider circle, and Mulberry is the asteroid belt. Alexander Kirwin is Deimos, and Benedict Kirwin, Phobos: Mars’s moons, orbiting me tightly. Titmuss, zigzagging through the grass, stands in for all the outer planets.
A laughing solar system, with laughing planets and laughing moons, and Guthrie in the middle, the great laughing sun. And even Wittgenstein laughs—even his wintry face breaks into laughter.
After philosophy, we will be as children at play, he says. Any seriousness will be put-on seriousness. Any solemnity will be playful solemnity.
• • •
We walk back along the river. Mulberry, stripped to his MESSIAH T-shirt, carrying Doyle on his shoulders. Guthrie, flush-faced, walking on his hands. The Kirwins, all muscle, in matching rowing vests, shouting and laughing. Chakrabarti, in deep conversation with Ede. Titmuss, flowers in his dreads, chanting om. And Wittgenstein at our head, beaming.
Cambridge opens to us as to Christ and his disciples.
After philosophy, the fact of Cambridge will overwhelm us, Wittgenstein says. The fact that it is, that it even exists.
After philosophy, we will lose our way in Cambridge, he says. The most familiar streets will become unknown.
After philosophy, Cambridge will hatch. The walls of the colleges will crack like eggshells …
After philosophy, the suburbs and exurbs will crumble, and the new developments will return to grass. After philosophy, the hideous buildings will fall down one by one …
Saturday. End of term. Parents come to collect their offspring. The open boots of cars packed with things—with Anglepoise lamps, with bicycles, with rolled-up posters, with pots of cacti … Boarding school all over again.
A last walk with Ede.
EDE: So you’re really staying on?
ME: I’m staying on.
EDE: Do you really expect to be able to help him?
ME: I want to be here when he calls.
EDE: Peters! Help me mit mein lederhosen!
Farewells on the steps. Hugs. See-you-laters. Saying goodbye like World War II fighter pilots. Well,
this is it, old man. Cheerio, old chap. Take care now. Goodbye, old sock. Toodleoo, old thing. Chocks away, groover. Chin-chin, old pal! Goodbye for six weeks, until the new term in January. Goodbye, until the new calendar year.
TITMUSS (pressing his palms together in a Hindu gesture): Namaste.
I embrace Chakrabarti in a rush of spurious emotion. Safe journey home, old chap. And goodbye to Guthrie. Goodbye to the Kirwins! To Okulu! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
4
The campus, deserted.
The colleges, hired out for conferences, on every topic under the sun. Dental Hygiene. Phospholipids. Phage Display. Entrepreneurial Innovation. Angel Investors. Process Design. Tapeworm Infrastructure …
A handful of tourists, dressed up against the cold. A few dedicated postgraduates, in Moon Boots and puffa jackets …
Snow, in drifts. A frozen River Cam. The sky, blue and cold and far. Cambridge, as Scandinavia. Cambridge, at the North Pole.
Monday comes. Then Tuesday. Then Wednesday.
A text from Wittgenstein. Please come. Am unwell.
I buy a bag of scones from the patisserie, and clotted cream and jam from Sainsbury’s.
He looks ill, in his armchair, with his flannel pyjamas and his dressing gown, and his hair in disarray.
I make tea in his kitchen. A metal teapot. A tin for loose leaves. An enamel tray.
He’s had fever for a week, he says.
On his desk, tiny slivers of paper. Trimmings from a photograph, of a young woman at a piano with her eyes closed. His mother, he says.
Picture-taking is a sacred thing, he says. It should be like learning to see. It should take a great mental effort. That’s why he’s trimming his photo, he says—he’s trying to learn how to see.
For the Kabbalists, beauty was once a golden whole, which then shattered, he says. But it isn’t so. Beauty is real. Beauty is here. It is we who have shattered.
Next day. Another text. Do come again.
Up the staircase, with another bag of scones. He wears a chunky sweater, like a ’60s folk singer.
He serves tea.
His hands are refined. Not delicate, exactly. Wise. A philosopher’s hands.