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Monsieur
* Dog in the Sand *
France
1688 Posts |
 Posted - 09/26/2005 : 04:05:39
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Just finished reading Wittgenstein's opus (that's how trendy people here call books and CDs).
I don't want to enter into details about its place in philosophy and stuff - I would be totally uncapable of discussing such issues.
But this book is the most elegant and witty philosophy book I've ever read. I've never met such mathematical poetry and logical simplicity before. It is not very difficult to read and is rather short.
There are some great sentences like "Objects are colorless" or "What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus
I will show you fear in a handful of dust |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 05:31:48
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I'd like to read that, thank you for the link. I took a philosophy degree but spent most of the time reading Spinoza and playing pool. Does Wittgenstein show or does he tell?
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
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Monsieur
* Dog in the Sand *
France
1688 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 08:57:37
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Actually, he makes it look like a mathematical demonstration but in fact, he does tell.
Good excerpts:
We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been
answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there
are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.
The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say
nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e.
something that has nothing to do with philosophy -- and then, whenever
someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him
that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.
Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not have
the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the
only strictly correct one.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust |
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VoVat
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
USA
9168 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 10:27:59
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Opus? You mean like the penguin?
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 10:51:17
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| Never read the Tractatus but I love Wittgentstein on the basis of his Philosophical Investigations and Ray Monk's biography Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. I recall Wiittgenstein being creditted as a unique figure in philosophy for having produced two highly influential and yet fundamentally opposite positions. Apparently, though the Tractatus remains a valuable work on its own merits, the Investigations stands as something of a repudiation by the older Wittgenstein of his earlier work. You prompt me to finally read the Tractatus and revisit the Investigations. |
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Monsieur
* Dog in the Sand *
France
1688 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 14:09:34
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Since the Tractatus says that philosophy is pointless, you have to deny it if you want to write something else.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust |
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 14:55:45
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| Good point. Actually, I think the Investigations is consistent with the Tractatus regarding the futility and even impossibility of philosophy. My own limited view of the Investigations is that it largely consists of empirical observations on the processes of communication and social interaction. In commenting on the use of language, he says we should "look at what it is that people actually do", rather than over-interpret by imposing intellectual preconceptions. He appears more to be practicing psychology than philosophy. |
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 14:08:01
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Monsieur - In saying above that the later Wittgenstein may have rejected his earlier work, I did not mean to suggest that your praise for the Tractatus was unwarranted. Hope I gave no offense, however superficially. I have no doubt that the Tractatus holds up well. I suspect that the two works do not in fact directly contradict one another but rather that the later work involves a shifting of the ground. One might say that W came to believe that with the Tractatus he was too close to the problem and that in the Investigations he backed up to see it in broader context.
I believe that later W became a radical empiricist in the sense of being a skeptic about how much we can claim is happening when people are said to communicate. In the simplest case of two people interacting, one makes sounds (or otherwise utilizes some conventional symbols) and in response the other engages in some behavior, possibly to include making sounds of his own. How is either to conclude that the other has understood? My take on W is that the only measure of whether the other has understood is to assess the appropriateness of the response, with “appropriateness” being measured by the only standard one has available: one’s own set of behavioral associations. If the one says “let’s go get a beer” and the other replies with a suggestion of a pub, the one assumes he has been understood. If the one says “pick up that rock” and the other indeed picks up the rock, again, understanding. However, I think W has become such a communication minimalist that he believes that one can interpret the exchange only to that depth. One cannot assume the other sees the rock as one does, that the other phonetically hears the utterance as one does, that the other possesses some congenial formal appreciation of the utterance “rock”, or that the other in any way shares one’s own sense of intent. One can only observe that the other behaves in a way that is compatible with one’s own intent. I think that the later W reduces all communication, however abstract it may be, to this very simple level, and, further, that this is all we can say with confidence about what is actually happening when people “communicate”.
The later W famously concludes that “the meaning is the use”. W would seem to be saying that for one to understand the meaning of any behavior, verbal or otherwise, one can look no further than the response by the other. With the meaning of words, phrases, sentences, etc., the measure of that meaning is how the utterance is used to elicit a behavior in the other, and the measure of whether the meaning has been conveyed can only be gauged in terms of whether the response makes sense within one’s own personal network of appropriateness. Think of a lengthy, rich conversation between two colleagues or friends. Most of the time they nod at one another while the conversation proceeds agreeably and swiftly. But at times they look at one another quizzically, or shake their heads, or even debate vigorously. From one another’s perspective the other is saying something one sees as nonsensical or inappropriate or otherwise conveying that one has not made oneself understood. So they say more, probing and even groping for common ground. At some point the nodding returns, perhaps with laughter. It is tempting to interpret what has occurred in terms of formal definitions or even fundamental premises, but W would say that we are not justified in analyzing at that level. My own opinion, not supported by any scholarship I’m aware of, is that W approached communication as though he were observing interaction between two or more solipsistic bubbles, where each such internal conceptual world has access only to its own associative network of ideas and interprets the behaviors of the other strictly in those terms only, simply because each bubble has nothing else to bring to the game.
I suppose I could go on but I already doubt much of this makes sense (as W might have it). Such things are notoriously difficult to discuss, in part because it is about the nature of communication itself but also because our evolution provided little means for discussion of such things. The only way I could be understood would be for this description to somehow resonate with your own experience of what it means to reside within your own bubble. I like to say that philosophy begins where words end. Afterall, as Owen hints above, in his later work W did resort to “showing” rather than “telling”. What a challenge it is to (try to) tell about telling. Or, more than a challenge, perhaps it would be impossible, in a somewhat Heisenbergian sense.
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Monsieur
* Dog in the Sand *
France
1688 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 04:48:32
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Erebus, no offense taken.
I guess that I wouldn't be so much attracted to W's later work - I'll try to read it though. For me, the Tractatus answers exactly what bothered me with philosophy when I was studying - the definition of words. Like Nietzsche saying that scientists are superior to artists - what is "superior"? - what exactly is a scientist? What exactly is an artist?
The second sentence in one of my previous posts is pretty clear. And it acts exactly like a zen koan. Once you answered all the questions, you still don't know the essential question - but there are no questions any more, so there is no riddle.
Wittgenstein's answer would be "cool. let's watch a western".
I don't think philosophers are seeking the truth, or something like that. Their creations are like works of art. They have the conclusion before the demonstration, or at least at the same time. It is very beautiful, but hides a little lie.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust |
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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
