Tolstoy's Treatment on Art and Later Wittgenstein

Abstract

The article outlines the main ideas of the book by Henry W. Pickford Thinking with Tolstoy and Wittgenstein. Expression, Emotion, and Art. Pickford's book is the first concrete and well-argued study of Tolstoy's influence on the late Wittgenstein. In the first part of the article, I analyze (independently of Pickford) the main ideas of Tolstoy's treatise on art. Then I briefly present (and again independently of Pickford) the skeptical paradox (regarding the meaning and following the rule) and the overcoming of the skeptical paradox in Wittgenstein's texts. In the final part I put numerous parallels (noted by Pickford) between the ideas of Tolstoy's treatise on art and later Wittgenstein.