[lit-ideas] Re: "Beilaufig gesprochen: Die Gegenstande sind farblos" (Wittgenstein, TLP 2.0232)
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 01:28:58 -0500
> For if a flower is, say, blue (meaning "non-blue", in Krueger's and
Geary's
> rewrite), why would we say that 'non-blue' is _not_ a colour?
Indeed why. I can't speak for JK, but I didn't say 'non-blue' is not a
colour or even not a color. I said that the blue flower was, in fact, every
color but blue. The colors we ascribe to things are actually the colors
they are not. The blue wave-lengths are reflected to our eyes because there
is nothing blue in the flower to absorb them. The flower is blueless or,
what I term, 'colorless'.
Clear as mud,
Mike Geary
----- Original Message -----
From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 2:02 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] "Beilaufig gesprochen: Die Gegenstande sind farblos"
(Wittgenstein, TLP 2.0232)
> Thanks to R. Paul for his comments.
> I wrote:
>
> >I wonder what's the German for the initial adverbial Wittgenstein used
>
> Oops.
> I note I wrote that before checking yesterday's mailing. My apology.
> I note that R. Paul offered a very detailed and useful distinction of the
> sentence in question. R. Paul writes:
>
> >The passage referred to is 2.0232:
> >Beilaufig gesprochen: Die Gegenstande sind farblos.
> >McGuinness and Pears translate 'Beilaufig gesprochen' not as 'Roughly
> speaking,'
> >but as 'In a manner of speaking.'
> >'Roughly speaking: objects are colourless,' is the Ogden translation.
> >As an adjective, 'beilaufig' could mean 'parenthetical' (a parenthetical
> remark)
> >but as an adverb (which it is here) it would seem to mean 'casually,' or
> >'informally.' In the new Mutton translation (see the forthcoming review
by R.
> >Henninge, in das Bild) this passage reads: 'One might say that obects are
> >colorless.' Nichols and May (1961) translate 2.0232 as 'There is a sense
in
> >which objects are colorless.'
>
> ---- Aha.
>
> Etymologically, -- cf. 'kitch' -- 'beilaufig' would seem to be composed of
> three elements:
>
> "bei" -- cognate with English, "by"
>
> "lauf" -- cognate with English "loaf"?
>
> "-ig" -- cognate with English "-y" (Old English, '-ig').
>
> The kernel seems to be "lauf" (which I freely translate as "loaf"?).
>
> R. Paul suggests this German word means "informally".
>
> In any case, it is obvious that the adverb applies to "gesprochen" -- so
> whatever this German word translates to, it is a modification of the
_speech_ --.
>
> I like "parenthetical". It would seem the phrase is also
"metalinguistic" --
> hence the colon: ":".
>
> As if saying,
>
> "Metalinguistically, objects are colourless."
>
> I wonder if German distinguishes between 'beilaufig' and OTHER types of
> speaking ("unbeilaufig"?).
>
> I mean: 'informally speaking' contrasts with "FORMALLY speaking". So much
so
> that
>
> "Informally _said_: objects are colourless."
>
> IMPLICATES -- as J. Krueger and J. M. Geary suggest --
>
> "_But_ formally said: they are kaleidoscopic."
>
> ?
>
> I submit the main objection stands: _things_ are (roughly speaking)
> colourless. Geary's idea (which he draws from J. Krueger) that the
perceiver infers the
> complementary value in the spectrum is appealing, but hardly solves the
> puzzle. For if a flower is, say, blue (meaning "non-blue", in Krueger's
and Geary's
> rewrite), why would we say that 'non-blue' is _not_ a colour?
>
> Wittgenstein seems to be trapped in Locke's old dichotomy between PRIMARY
and
> SECONDARY qualities. Primary qualities are things like _bulk_. Secondary
> qualities are best represented by _colours_. But to Locke, qualities are
> _phenomenal_ things, and _phenomena_ have them (For Locke, objects are
coloured -- or
> colourful, even).
>
> Indeed, for Locke, the idea of a colourless object is a _contradictio in
> terminis_ (He counted black and white as colours, let it be said).
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL
>
>
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