Ulrich Arnswald

Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, is an intellectual giant whose work is not only proving enduring but is even more flourishing today than during his lifetime. Only one of his works was published during his lifetime, but it made him a legend in the world of philosophy: the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. One sentence in the Tractatus that urgently requires interpretation is TLP 6.4311, in which he asserts: “Death is not an event in life. Death is not lived through.” This sentence is surrounded by other sentences that allow for an analysis of what Wittgenstein refers to as ‘an event in life’ on the one hand and ‘the experience of death’ on the other. Wittgenstein’s thesis that ‘death is not an event in life’ has far-reaching consequences: If death is not an event in life, then it does not belong to the world. Although death is neither part of the world nor an event in life, it forms a boundary for the living and their experience. With death, temporality ends, which also points to this boundary. The philosopher does not assign any value to death. Death is neither positive nor negative, but simply a neutral event. Life only acquires meaning through death. In view of the reality of death, ethical questions are also considered, because every person must die as a human being and face death itself. With death, not only life ends, but also the world. The world ceases to exist because the subject ceases to live. Thus, the precondition for the world is no longer given. The existence of the subject ends. Wittgenstein reveals himself to be a transcendental idealist, since the transcendental subject does not belong to the world but is a condition of the world that ends with the death of the subject.

Thomas More's Utopia is not a feasible blueprint for a future ideal state, but rather a complex game with a fictional reality that deliberately maintains a distance from the actual world. This fictional reality manifests itself, for example, in the fact that the reality of the island described is untraceable and projected at an unattainable distance. This fictionality serves as a protective space in which to engage in radical criticism of the state without committing to a specific political program. Thomas More considers the work to be a game or thought experiment of the mind with wit and spirit. Thus, the fictional reality of the island is not a guide for imitation, but rather a parody or reflection of the conditions in Europe at the time. In Utopia, there is no prior “reality” that is subsequently “fictionalized;” rather, a “reality of fiction within fiction” (Arnswald) is created, whose historical “actuality” exists only inside the text, which renders the “truly real” (to ontos on) of ancient Greek philosophy insignificant as soon as one accepts that fiction makes the fictitious conceivable, even if it is realistically impossible. The fictional entity is thus a product of our imagination.