[lit-ideas] Re: The essence of Wittgenstein ('nuff said about the unsayable)

Robert Paul's long reply is overdue a response, but this perhaps needs one
first.

 --- Richard Henninge <Henninge@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > My judgment call
on this one is that McEvoy is way out of line.
> >
> > You are not the first to come to this judgment.
> >
> * Is that "not the first to come to this judgment [McEvoy way out of line]
> in general" or "on this one," for if the latter my judgment along these
> lines preceded Robert Paul's?

Misleading dichotomy. There is a possibility that is less than "in general"
and different to "on this one", and that is "on some other occasions". Let's
leave it at that.

> > > Piece of Evidence the First:
> > >
> > > RPaul says:
> > >
> > > > > Nevertheless, 'my
> > > > > propositions'
> > > > > refers to propositions such as e.g. 6.432 'How things are in the
> world
> > > is a
> > > > > matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not
> reveal
> > > > > himself
> > > > > in the world.' This is, strictly speaking, nonsensical, for it is
> NOT a
> > > > > proposition whose elements CAN BE MATCHED with elements of the
> world.
> > >
> > > DMcEvoy retorts in the form of a correction in passing:
> > >
> > > > I assume you mean "cannot be matched".
> >
> > Did RP capitalise or is this your judgment call again?
> 
> * The capitalization is mine and is appropriate. It is for the person who
> "misread in haste." I have made the letters bigger so that in his haste he
> does not again misread RP's words. But I ask: "In what way is that a
> "judgment call" on my part?"

You judged it appropriate. That is, your saying it is appropriate is not, for
example, the upshot of an algorithm etc. where one might say the conclusion
is beyond being a matter of 'judgment'.


> > The fact is I misread in haste: I missed the vital "NOT". Hence your
> > speculations below are mistaken..
> 
> * Let me say a word about DMcEvoy and "hence." Y voilà ci-dessous les mots
> étourdissants de M. McEvoy, uh, 

Not being at the UN, I have no translator to help me out here.

>here below you will find the striking
> discussion by Mr. McEvoy of Robert Paul's clarification of "saying P does
> not entail Q" = "saying P does not entail Q."

What is striking is that RP's so-called clarification is based on reading
into what I said something afair I never said viz. that it is logically
necessary that because 'God does not reveal himself' is unsayable/only
showable/ that it must be the case that atomic propositions are
unsayable/only showable. 

The linkage I made is rather less necessary than that: nevertheless that the
two kinds of proposition are unsayable etc. is all of a piece. 

Let me be clear: I am not claiming to be certain that atomic propositions are
unsayable. But I have offered a number of arguments that have not been
rebutted except by counter-assertion. This remains the heart of the matter.
For example, RP has asserted afair that loads of atomic propositions can be
said: yet he offers no clear example, and neither strikingly does W in the
whole of TLP - again to be clear here, my understanding is that 'The cat is
on the mat' is _not_ an atomic proposition. It is nowhere near atomic enough.
Neither, it seems, is 'This is red'.
I have also pointed out that the claim that only the "propositions of natural
science" "can be said" is not itself a proposition of natural science, and so
declares itself unsayable - paradoxical as this may sound. That is, W's own
key philosophical assertions are, according to themselves, nonsense trying to
say what can only be shown. In suggestinging 'atom.props' are unsayable I am,
of course, suggesting that atomic propositions are not "propositions of
natural science". I pointed out a letter where W says "That all elementary
props are given is SHOWN" ie. cannot be said, which of course ties elementary
props to a doctrine of unsayability.

I do not claim these arguments are conclusive: but none rely on saying that
because 'God etc' is unsayable therefore atomic props must be unsayable. And
if I had really thought it were that simple a deduction I don't see why I
should have bothered offering these arguments. Perhaps someone with
doctorate-level exegetical skills can explain why I should have bothered,
convincingly?

Unless it can be shown that I did make such a claim of necessity as RP tries
to rebut, then RP's counter-argument is a) addressing something I never
claimed b) based on a misreading. [Note I here refrain from saying b
logically follows from a - though it may do].

This, if so, perhaps renders ironical, as well as beside-the-point, your
rather condescending comments on my failure to react appropriately to RP's
'clarification', for RP certainly has not responded apologetically [or
whatever you would demand appropriate for me, see below] for his misreading,
and indeed this fits a "pattern" I have noticed on occasion before. [You are
not the only one who sees certain "patterns" in people's responses, your own
included].
 
> > *I wrote: The propositions which 'can be said,' viz., 'the propositions
> of
> > natural science,' and the 'factual' propositions of ordinary language ...
> > are
> > neither dispensable nor nonsensical, and it does not follow that because
> > 'my
> > propositions' in the foregoing sense are ...unsayable, that atomic
> > propositions,
> > the ultimate residue of the 'analysis' of propositions are unsayable:
> 'The
> > simplest kind of proposition, an elementary proposition, asserts the
> > existence
> > of a state of affairs.' [4.21]

Note that RP's quotation of 4.21 is entirely inadequate to clinch the view
that elemty.props. are sayable - for it says no such thing. To offer as
support a quotation that offers no support may indicate a fundamental
misreading. For now I put it no higher.

> > Donal replies: It does not necessarily follow, but nor does it
> necessarily
> > follow that it is not the case.
> 
> *This was the original Donal reply. 

Exactly: and I maintain I never said anything different and that this reply
is correct and that RP's rebuttal is based on a misreading of what I had
written.


>I discern a pattern of response in
> Donal, that's all. In learned discourse (forgive the pompous title, but
> call
> it what you will, it is something like that to which we aspire, n'est-ce
> pas?) one (not to be too preachy here) must first assume (Donal's word--but
> he seems not to share this dictum of first assumption) that one's
> interlocutor knows what he or she is saying and has said it appropriately.

Nonsense: one looks at the evidence to decide whether they know what they are
saying and have said it appropiately. Of course, I would agree with a
Davidsonian principle of charity - do not lightly assume they have it wrong.
I do not lightly assume it: but where have I ever made the claim P entails Q
that RP rebuts? I don't think P *entails* Q, and so don't lightly assume I
would have claimed any such thing. 

Neither of you have said where I said any such thing: and it is also a
principle of charity, which ironically seems to escape your notice here, to
make clear where someone has made a mistake before presuming a mistake has
been made and rushing in to correct it. [N'est ce pas?]

> It is a bad sign when the response begins with an incorrect correction of a
> sentence in the text to which it is responding. "Hastily read" is not
> enough. "I must change my ways--It must be me (i.e. my mistake)--Let me
> look
> at that again to avoid being myself in error from now on," would be nice.

Listen sunshine - I am not for nothing a fallibilist: I make mistakes daily
[taking this time to reply to this post may count as one]. I should have been
more careful, yes. I am not losing sleep over it and RP has sensibly made no
big deal over this word-missing. It is less egregious an error perhaps than
seeming to miss chunks of points I made that would be pointless to make if
indeed it were as simple as P entails Q.

 > *And then this with the Ps and Qs. Robert Paul had just gone to great
> lengths (Ask yourself why?) to explain that just because some sorts of
> propositions are unsayable it does not follow that another sort of
> proposition is unsayable. In other words, just because P is the case does
> not logically commit Q to being the case. 

But I [afair] never disagreed with this last claim.

>Robert Paul only brings this up
> because Donal has apparently taken just this line of thought, or logic. 

Has he? _Where_? It would help if someone said (if this were a more serious
forum I might feel obliged to hoke through my posts to prove the absence of
just such a line of thought; but I don't yet feel obliged).

>But
> does Donal look back at his thinking to determine what it was that has led
> Robert to this explanation? No! Why bother. "Augen zu und durch," one says
> in German to such a response. "And the Devil take the hindmost," is similar
> in English. "Close your eyes and go for it, press forward, don't look back,
> never admit substantive error, bluff...." What does Donal say to Robert's
> plea for help (lost!)?

My God. As an aside, can I just ask are prescription drugs quite easy to get
over-the-counter in Germany?

> > *To say that P does not entail Q _is_ to say that P doesn't entail Q. so,
> I
> > am
> > lost here.
> 
> Lost? To say that P does not (necessarily) entail Q is not to say
> (necessarily) that Q is not the case.
> 
> *Clear enough? Q is not the case because of P, but that doesn't mean that Q
> is not the case! Robert says, "Careful, Donal, P hence Q is not an
> acceptable conclusion," and Donal answers "But maybe Q! (forget P)."

No: Donal does not say "forget P" - P is an unforgettable part of the
exegetical picture.
But because he never linked P and Q as by logical necessity, he is entitled
to say his view is NOT rebutted by the assertion that Q is NOT entailed by P.

(Capitalised just in case anyone should fall into my error of missing a
'NOT')
 
Really, if you were acting consistent to the standards you seem to think I
have fallen below, I think you'd manage to begin your post - or specify
somewhere - where I said P _entails_ Q, rather than that P is some evidence
for Q as an interpretation because it is all 'of a piece' exegetically.

Donal
London

Ps. If you manage to show where I said P entails Q, I am sorry - for I don't
think I meant it. 


        
        
                
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