Wittgenstein's Dissertation

Okay, so I'm only writing about this as a set-up to one of my favorite academic stories. The QUICK and the ED has a post over the probably forced resignation of M.I.T. Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones, of whom it was discovered after some 28 years of service that she had fabricated her own c.v. and did not even possess an undergraduate degree. The point of the blog post (and the very different point of my writing about it) is as follows:

This shows how rigid the credentialing mentality has become in higher education, trumping three decades of undisputed good work. It wasn't always that way. When Ludwig Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929, they simply accepted his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as a doctoral thesis.

Well, now. However excellent at her job Ms Jones may have been, Wittgenstein's Tractatus had already been published in 1921 (how many doctoral dissertations can that be said about?), was widely influential and hailed as a masterpiece almost immediately, especially among the Vienna Circle logical positivists, and it remains one of the most important works of philosophy of the 20th century if not of the entire history of philosophy. The work had in large measure been prompted by Wittgenstein's interest, first, in the work of logician Gottlob Frege (there's a good story there, too) who, in turn, sent him to study with Bertrand Russell at Cambridge. Russell's colleague at Cambridge, fellow philosopher G.E. Moore had recommended the Latin title, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to Wittgenstein.

When Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929, bestowal of his PhD degree was itself a complete sham to enable him to get a paid position, Russell having noticed that Wittgenstein's earlier years there technically met the PhD residency requirement. In that generation at both Oxford and Cambridge, possession of a PhD was not a requirement for an academic career. Promising scholars who had taken "First" (highest honors) B.A. degrees simply continued in their studies and were (and still are) awarded M.A. degrees "in course" after several years; that is, these scholars are not required to complete any further formal course work or write a thesis. Today, as I understand it, British universities typically expect aspiring scholars to complete a PhD just like in the U.S. However, as late as the 1970s a former teacher of mine and a full professor at a major American university held only a B.A. from Oxford, having been too cheap to pay the small fee Oxford required to grant him the M.A.

Now for the story. Wittgenstein's "examining committee" was comprised of - guess who? - Bertrand Russell, whom Wittgenstein contended never did understand the Tractatus, and G.E. Moore, who had probably never even bothered to try. As the story goes, they basically met for tea one afternoon, Russell and Wittgenstein argued for a while and Moore said practically nothing. The "examiners" recommendation was a foregone conclusion, but a written recommendation nonetheless had to be submitted to the university. Moore wrote the recommendation. I have never seen the actual document and reports of its wording vary, so I will simply relate the recommendation in full as it was told to me:

It is my opinion that Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a work of philosophical genius. It nonetheless fully meets the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.