“The depth of magic ought to be preserved” : Re-reading Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough

In this talk, I will focus on Wittgenstein’s remarks on magic. His Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough have most often been read in the context of his critique of the Scottish anthropologist’s method. Yet one of the most original features of Wittgenstein’s approach concerns the relationship between magic and incantatory formulas, on the one hand, and magic and symbolism, on the other. I will take as my object the positive contribution of Wittgenstein’s remarks: to restore the depth of magic is to understand its importance within what he calls a “common spirit” (“ihr gemeinsamer Geist ”), but it is also to take seriously the desires and wishes that these rituals fulfill. In particular, I’ll ask what role repetition plays here, and what the incantatory formulas of magic teach us metonymically about the entanglement between words, gestures and practices that defines a language game for Wittgenstein. I will also show that the meaning of ritual acts takes the form of a possible (rather than actual) history, which the anthropologist retraces by elaborating its meaning. This exploration of the status of magic is not unrelated to the interpretation of the remarks Wittgenstein originally placed at the head of the manuscript: “I now believe it would be right to begin my book with remarks on metaphysics as a kind of magic. Where, in doing so, however, I must neither speak out for magic, nor ridicule it. The depth of magic ought to be preserved.” In conclusion, I shall examine what he might mean by this, i.e., what depth he might grant to metaphysics.