A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1920, Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong died. Meinong was known for his unique ontology, which claimed that everything that the universe contains everything that can be thought (even contradictions!) even if those things don’t exist, but merely “subsist.”
“Consider the proposition ‘the present king of France is wise’. This is perfectly meaningful, and because it is so it seems natural to ask whether it is true or false. And to this there seems an equally natural answer. There is no king of France at present; the subject term fails to refer to anything. Therefore, it seems that the proposition should be considered false. But there is a problem here, concerning how to demonstrate why it is false. This is because if in normal circumstances we say of something (call it ‘x’) that x is wise, the proposition ‘x is wise’ will be true if x is wise, and false if x is not wise. But what if there is no x? How can we say of something that does not exist that it either is or is not wise?
Initially Russell accepted a solution to this puzzle which had been proposed by the nineteenth‐century philosopher Alexius Meinong. This solution was to say that every expression with a referring or denoting function in a sentence does denote something, either an actually existing item, as with the table in ‘the table is brown’, or a ‘subsisting’ item, where by ‘subsistence’ is meant non‐actual existence – a kind of real but half or ‘courtesy’ existence. On this view, the universe contains everything that can be thought or talked about, including the present king of France; but only some of what the universe contains is actually existent. Accordingly the descriptive phrase ‘the present king of France’ does indeed denote, and what it denotes is a subsistent – that is a real but non‐actual – king of France.” — From ‘Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction’ by A.C. Grayling
A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1919, Marxist theorist, anti-war activist, and economist Rosa Luxemburg died.
“Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) was a revolutionary Marxist in the German SPD. She was often deeply critical of the leadership of her own party because she believed it was becoming too dominated by short-term reforms and was losing sight of the ultimate goal of socialist revolution. However, she believed in mass action by the working class as the way of bringing about change and was critical of Lenin’s concept of a vanguard party. In 1903, she attacked it for ultra-centralism, which she equated with the ‘sterile spirit of the overseer:
Lenin’s concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party – to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind rather than unify it.
Once the Russian Revolution took place, she gave it cautious support and was a leading figure in the German Communist Party when it was established in December 1918. However, the next month she (and Karl Liebknecht, another prominent figure in the new party) were arrested by German cavalry officers, who were suppressing a revolutionary uprising. Both were murdered while in custody, so Luxemburg did not live to witness the subsequent development of the Soviet system and the uses that would be made of the Leninist party.” — From ‘Socialism: A Very Short Introduction’ by Michael Newman
Today marks the 59th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death! RIP!
27 October 1932 Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, USA - 11 February 1963, Primrose Hill, London, England, United Kingdom
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“I can’t deceive myself out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide. But the cold reasoning mass of gray entrail in my cranium which parrots “I think, therefore I am,” whispers that there is always the turning, the upgrade, the new slant. And so I wait.”
Sylvia Plath commited suicide on Monday, 11 February 1963 at approximately 4:30 a.m. in her appartment at 23 Fitzroy Road, near Primrose Hill, London, where she moved in with her two children in December 1962 after separating from Ted Hughes; a house William Butler Yeats used to live in from 1867 till 1873.
She was 30 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 1 day old. Her death certificate states that the cause of her death was “Carbon Monoxide Poisoning (domestic gas) whilst suffering from depression. Did kill herself”.
She left some bread and milk in her children’s (Frieda, almost 3 and Nicholas, 1 year old) room, opened their window and sealed their door off with tape to prevent the gas from entering. She also sealed the kitchen door with wet towels.Sylvia Plath’s dead body was discovered less than five hours later. Her children were unharmed.
Jillian Becker wrote in her memoir Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plaththat “According to Mr. Goodchild, a police officer attached to the coroner’s office … [Plath] had thrust her head far into the gas oven… [and] had really meant to die.”Sylvia Plath is buried in Heptonstall’s parish churchyard of St Thomas the Apostle, the new St Thomas á Becket’s churchyard; near Ted Hughes’ birthplace Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire, England.
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Photo info: Studio portrait of Sylvia Plath holding with a glass ball, 1945-55
