3 ms·
>It’s hard now to know how consistent his use of corporal punishment was with standard practice at the time. The quoted Wittgenstein biography of Monk (highly
by a_bonobo 11y ago
>It’s hard now to know how consistent his use of corporal punishment was with standard practice at the time.
The quoted Wittgenstein biography of Monk (highly recommended!) actually has a comment on that:
>Another girl who was weak at mathematics remembers that one day Wittgenstein pulled her hair so hard that when she later combed it a lot of it fell out. [...] It was not that the villagers disapproved of corporal punishment, nor that such methods of discipline were at all unusual, despite Glöckel’s recommendations. However, though it was accepted that an unruly boy should have his ears boxed if he misbehaved, it was not expected that a girl who could not grasp algebra should receive the same treatment.
Location 419.4/1469 in my ebook copy
So, at least according to Monk, Wittgenstein's methods of corporal punishment were according to the times when it came to male students, but not according to the times when it came to female students, especially when it's about mathematics.
- a_humean 11y agoMonk's biography on Wittgenstein is great. I recommend his newest one on Oppenheimer if you haven't read it. I think Monk's point wasn't just about gender, but also about whether the punishment was appropriate or proportionate in any case. Disrupting a class should be punishable regardless of gender, but struggling with a difficult lesson, especially one deemed unimportant for young girls at the time, is not a publishable fault. There was also the fact that Wittgenstein's corporal punishment was particularly harsh, and on one occasion fled town when even he realised that he went too far by basically hospitalising a young girl. In later life he eventually returned to apologise, but had his apology refused.