[lit-ideas] Re: Wittgenstein: "He is a _human being!" (Was: Mirembe...Ny Times...eternitytime)

Richard Henninge wrote:

 > All this talk of Wittgenstein's "implying" X and Malcolm's "inference"
> on Y really gets my goat (and I know Robert has been longing for news of my
> goat!). The fact of the matter is that Peter has correctly pointed out that
> Malcolm is off base in his assumptions concerning the mental state of Ludwig
> Wittgenstein as interpreted through his English usage. I think it is safe to
> infer that Robert's quoting of Malcolm implies that he, Robert, agrees with
> the latter's assessment. But not only does Robert not want to admit that he
> made a mistake in endorsing Malcolm; he also does not want to admit that
> Malcolm himself had made a false inference (as a result of his naive
> interpretation of Wittgenstein's comment, responding to it as if English
> were Wittgenstein's first language…[etc.]

I am so happy to see the Dragon of Mainz aroused once more from his 
dogmatic slumbers that I am reluctant to comment on what he thinks he 
can safely infer above except to say that it is simply false. It would 
of course be mean-spirited of me to say that for one who can blithely 
attribute such intentions and motives to me to pretend to an intimate 
knowledge Malcolm's and Wittgenstein's mental processes is, in a word, 
hilarious, and I thank Richard for brightening my day.

Our interlocutor continues in a light sarcastic vein to suggest that 
ever since his words first appeared on the ancestors of this list the 
onus has been on him to show that his observations have not been 
trivial. This is news to me. I'd have read the history as one of 
Richard's ridiculing and dismissing any attempt by any English-speaker 
anywhere to understand any German philosopher (or, in this case, any 
philosopher writing in German) on any issue, on the unargued-for grounds 
that… that… that… only Richard, solely in virtue of his having a command 
of German, can understand the arguments of Kant, Schopenhauer, Frege, 
Wittgenstein or whomever else anyone at Oxford, Cambridge, Ithaca, 
Berkeley, or Eugene might dare offer an opinion on. One might suppose 
that by parity of reasoning Richard could not possibly get anything 
Locke, Berkeley, Hume, or Russell said straight in more than rough 
outline. But of course this would be an unfair supposition among friends 
and colleagues, or indeed anywhere.

When I said that that Malcolm's understanding of Wittgenstein's remark 
(as expressed by Malcolm, in his own words), went against the usual 
understanding (mine, e.g.) of the words 'all too human,' I meant simply 
that to fault someone for not meeting the standard of being human, 
thereby suggesting that being human was something one ought to aspire 
to, was incompatible with the subtext of the folk-saying: for in it, to 
say that one is all too human is to suggest that to be human is to 
succumb, inevitably, to temptations and to make mistakes in aim and 
judgment.

I am sure that in speaking of 'people of Malcolm's ilk, or likes, or 
caliber,' Richard did not mean to insult Malcolm or his memory or me. It 
was the sort of mistake, easily explained, that anyone whose grasp of 
English is no firmer than that of a sailor's grip on a frozen line in a 
North Sea gale might make.

I am too tired now to thrash about in the swamp of implicature and 
counter-implicature that the final paragraph of Richard's post presents. 
I hope he will forgive me for the moment. I really am glad to see him 
back, and I trust his goat is well, that it remains eine gesunde Ziege.


Robert Paul
Reed College


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