Dear Michael,

The reason you don't know anyone who does not see Wittgenstein as a lazy
layabout is that you work in philosophy. You also work in art and design
where many people cite Wittgenstein (as well as Kuhn, Berger and Luckmann,
Feyerabend, Peirce, Schon, etc.) without reading them well -- sometimes
without reading them at all.

I can assure you that the vast majority of the citizens of the advanced
industrial democracies have never heard of Wittgenstein. Many of these
believe that ALL philosophers are probably trainspotters. Vast numbers of
these openly question whether any society should support universities that
do not deliver direct vocational training or immediately applicable research.

I am not saying that this is right. I am saying that it is so. If you want
to know whether anyone holds this view -- and I hope it is clear that I do
NOT hold this view -- then you must look beyond your circle of acquaintances.

Again, I'm not saying you're are wrong. I am describing a situation. When
it comes to citations, by the way, I will pose an interesting problem for
you. A leading professor of bibliometrics once told me that excluding the
PhD thesis, among all university scholars and scientists, 25% publish once
and only once, 50% never publish, and 25% publish all the rest. Now, among
those 25% who DO publish, only a fairly small percentage cite Wittgenstein.
Of all active scholars and scientists, therefore, how many are the wide
citations of Wittgenstein's work and what percentage of all scholars are
using him?

You are a respected Wittgenstein specialist. As a result, your view of how
the world views Wittgenstein is skewed by your involvement with those
several millions of people who have read Wittgenstein or know about him at
all, in contrast with what must be roughly six billion people or so of the
world's population (currently estimated at 6,221,312,356) who do not.

Despite Wittgenstein's view of practical affairs, his ideas are not easily
rendered useful in any immediate sense. I do not think of him as a
trainspotter or stamp collector, but a necessary and vital thinker whose
ideas inform the thinking of many who do put ideas to practical use.
Nevertheless, I will stand on my point: anyone who performs the role in
society that Wittgenstein performed is not considered by most to be a
practical thinker. In this sense, my response only labels Wittgenstein in
terms of David Sless's exact words on the universities and museums. I did
not reflect my own views (or David's general views, only those words) and I
used those words only to make a point about the distinction of how many
people see the differences between immediately useful or applicable ideas
and those kinds of ideas that have long-term value without apparently
immediate value. Here I gave the examples of Einstein, Lister, Semmelweiss,
Pasteur, Deming, and Wittgenstein.

Forgetting Wittgenstein for a moment, you will find arguments were made
about all of these people and their ideas in terms of uselessness ("even if
it is true, it is useless") as well as other kinds of arguments being
offered on issues of error.

Anyhow, I'm not disagreeing with you on the essentials. I am disagreeing
with you on how many people see Wittgenstein as practical and useful -- or
even as important. I do not say they are correct in their views. I say
their numbers are greater than you may think, inside the university as well
as outside.

Best regards,

Ken