The art of philosophical discovery

Henk Visser

pp. 261-267

in: Rudolf Haller, Johannes L. Brandl (eds), Wittgenstein — eine neubewertung/Wittgenstein — towards a re-evaluation, Berlin, Springer, 1990

Abstract

In 1915, the Viennese bookseller Braumüller published a book by Richard Wahle, The, tragecomedy of wisdom — the results and history of philosophizing, in which the author, a professor in philosophy at the University of Czernowitz, says that the insight to which philosophy has come is as follows: "the best is silence'.¹ "Philosophy exists only as questions, not as answers".² Though the book has two editions — the second in 1925 — it cannot be maintained that the author became famous. It is true that the Pictorial history of philosophy by Runes contains a portrait and a short biography of Wahle³, but I have not yet seen commemorations of the year of his death, let alone celebrations of his birthday.