I suppose this is not going to get resolved by any sort of agreement. Your reading is wrong on my view and your paraphrasing is mistaken. However I don't see how I can convince you, given your commitment to the notion that there is no "transition". What do YOU mean by "transition"? What I mean is a period during which his ideas were still developing, moving toward new notions and away from what he had previously thought.

You have told us it was all accomplished in what amounts to a single year and everything afterwards only reflects his efforts to find effective ways of conveying his new ideas (the new wisdom?) to the world. And you say that Rhees' preface does not support the alternative view I have championed, that the period 1929-1939 represents a time of "transition" for him (as defined above). Presumably this boils down to your wanting to say that the change was compressed into a single year at most and I am saying it involved a decade long transition, as reflected in the actual writings we have from him in the period.

Okay, let's take a look at that Rhees preface!

--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart:

> You are once again wrong about the Rhees' preface. He does nothing close to what you are attributing to him. I'm going to summarize that here and then launch a separate mail summarizing the "transition" issue. I don't want readers to be misled by an ahistoric and factually-suspect critique. I'm also not going to attend to this mail in great detail because I fear it will only lead to "issue change" and 6 others that go nowhere. Ultimately, if you want to grasp this issue yourself, you need to re-read Monk (Chapters 12-14, 16 & 20). I would even take notes and make an outline of the chapters. Only then can you have any hope of seeing that you are reading things into Rhees that do not support your thesis.
>

> First, Rhees isn't saying anything that supports the position that the Blue and Brown Books (B&BBs) represent a Wittgenstein that is intermediate to the Tractatus and the Investigations. What he says is that there are approaches in the Investigations that try to more
> comprehensively announce the new views.

Page viii

"Philosophy was a method of investigation for Wittgenstein, but his
conception of the method was changing. We can see this in the way he uses the notion of 'language game', for instance. He used to introduce them in order to shake off the idea of a necessary form of language. At least that was one use he made of them, and one of the earliest. . . .In the Blue Book he speaks sometimes of imagining different language games, and sometimes of imagining different notations -- as though that were what it amounted to. And it looks as though he had not distinguished clearly between being able to speak and understanding a notation.

"He speaks of coming to understand what people mean by having someone explain the meanings of the words, for instance. As though 'understanding' and 'explaining' were somehow correlative. But in the Brown Book he emphasizes that learning a language game is something prior to that. And what is needed is not an explanation but training -- comparable with the training you would give an animal. This goes with the point he emphasizes in the Investigations, that being able to speak and understand what is said -- knowing what it means -- does not mean that you can say what it means; nor is that what you have learned . . . "

Page ix

"When the Brown Book speaks of different language games as 'systems of communication' (Systeme menschlicher Verstandigung), these are not just different notations. and this introduces a notion of understanding, and of the relation of understanding and language, which does not come to the front in the Blue book at all. In the Brown Book he is insisting, for example, that 'understanding' is not one thing; it is as various as the language games themselves are. Which would be one reason for saying that when we do imagine different language games, we are not imagining parts or possible parts of any general system of language.

"The Blue Book is less clear about that. On page 17 he says that 'the study of language games is the study of primitive forms of language or primitive languages'. But then he goes on, 'If we want to study the problems of truth and falsehood, of the agreement or disagreement of propositions with reality, of the nature of assertion, assumption and question, we shall with great advantage look at primitive forms of language in which these forms of thinking appear without th confusing background of highly complicated processes of thought. When we look at such simple forms of language, the mental mist which seems to enshroud our ordinary use of language disappears. On the other hand we recognize in these simple processes forms of language not separated by a break from our more complicated ones. We see that we can build up the complicated forms from the primitive ones by gradually adding new forms.'

"That almost makes it look as though we are trying to give something like ana analysis of our ordinary language. As though we wanted to discover something that goes on in our language as we speak it, but which we cannot see until we take this method of getting through the mist that enshrouds it. And as if 'the nature of assertion, assumption and question' were the same there; we have just found a way of making it transparent. Whereas the Brown Book is denying that. That is why he insists in the Brown Book (p.81) that he is 'not regarding the language games which we describe as incomplete parts of a language, but as languages complete in themselves'. So that, for instance, certain grammatical functions in one language would not have any counterpart in another at all. And 'agreement of disagreement with realityu' would be something different in the different languages -- so that the study of it in that language might not show you much about what it is in this one."

Page x

"In one of Wittgenstein's note-books there is a remark about language games, which he must have written at the beginning of 1934. I suspect it is later than the one I have quoted from page 17; anyway it is different. 'Wenn ich bestimmete einfache Sprachspiele beschreibe, so geschielt es nicht, um mit ihnen nach und nach die Vorgange der ausgebildeten Sprache -- oder des Dankens -- aufzubauen, was nurzu Ungerechtigkeiten fuhrt (Nicod und Russell), -- sondeern ich stelle die Spiele als solche hin, und lasse sie ihre aufklarende Wirkung auf die besonderen Probleme ausstrahlen.' ('When I describe certain simple language games, this is not in order to construct from them gradually the processes of our developed language -- or of thinking -- which only leads to injustices (Nicod and Russell). I simply set forth the games as what they are, and let them shed their light on the particular problems'.)

"I think that would be a good description of the method in the first part of the Brown Book but it also points to the big difference between the Brown Book and the Investigations.

Page xi

"The language games there (in the Investigations) are not stages in the exposition of a more complicated language, any more than they are in the Brown Book; less so, if anything. But they are stages in a discussion leading up to the 'big question' of what language is (par. 65).

"He brings them in -- in the Investigations and in the Brown Book, too -- to throw light on the question about the relation of words, and what they stand for. But in the Investigations he is concerned with 'the philosophical conception of meaning' which we find in Augustine, and he shows that this is the _expression_ of a tendency which comes out most plainly in that theory of logically proper names which holds that the only real names are the demonstratives this and that. He calls this 'a tendency to sublime the logic of our language' . . . -- partly because, in comparison with the logically proper names, 'anything else we might call a name was one only in an inexact, approximate sense'. . . . (He does not do this in the Brown Book at all and if all he wanted were to throw light on the functioning of language, there would be no need to.)

Page xii

"In the Brown Book, on the other hand, he passes from examples of different sorts of naming to a discussion of various ways of 'comparing with reality'. This is still a discussion of words and what they stand for, no doubt. But he is not trying here to bring out the tendency behind that way of looking at words which has given trouble in philosophy.

"In the Investigations he goes on then to a discussion of the relations of logic and language, but he does not do that in the Brown Book . . ."

"It was because people thought of 'what can be said' as 'what is allowed in a calculus' ('For what other sense of "allowed" is there?') -- it was for that reason that logic was supposed to govern the unity of language: what belongs to language and what does not; what is intelligible and what is not; what is a proposition and what is not. In the Brown Book Wittgenstein is insisting that language does not have that kind of unity. Nor that kind of intelligibility. But he does not really discuss why people wanted to suppose that it has.

"You might think he had done that earlier, in the Blue Book, but I do not think he did. I do not think he sees the question about lofica and language there which the Brown Book is certainly bringing out, even if it does not make quite clear what kind of difficulty it is. On page 25 of the Blue Book he says that 'in general we don't use language according to strict rules -- it hasn't been taught us by means of strict rules, either. We, in our discussions on the other hand, constantly compare language with a calculus proceeding according to exact rules'. When he asks (at the bottom of the page) why we do this he replies simply, 'The answer is that the puzzles which we try to remove simply spring from just this attitude towards language.' And you might wonder whether that is an answer. His point, as he puts it on page 27, for instance, is that 'the man who is philosophically puzzled sees a law in the way a word is used, and, trying to apply this law consistently, comes up against paradoxical results.' And at first that looks something like what he said later, in the Investigations, about a tendency to sublime the logic of our language. But here in the Blue Book he does not bring out what there is about the use of language or the understanding of language that leads people to think of words in that way. Suppose we say that it is because philosophers look on language metaphysically. All right; but when we ask what makes them do that, wittgenstein answers in the Blue Book that it is because of a craving for generality, and because 'philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistably tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does' (p. 18). In other words, he does not find the source of metaphysics in anything specially connected with language. That is one very important point here, and it means that he was not anything like clear about the character of philosophical puzzlement as he was when he wrote the Investigations."

Page xiii

"Wittgenstein is quite clear in the Blue book that we do not use language according to strict rules, and that we do not use words according to laws like the laws that science speaks of. But he is not quite clear about the notions of 'knowing the meaning' or of 'understanding'; and that means that he is still unclear about a gread deal in the notion of 'following a rule' too. And for that reason he does not altogether recognize the kind of confusions that there may be when people say that knowing the language is knowing what can be said."

"Wittgenstein makes it plain in the Blue Book that words have the meanings we give them, and that it would be a confusion to htink of an investigation into their real meanings. But he has not yet seen clearly the difference between learning alanguage game and learning a notation. And for that reason he cannot quite make out the character of the confusion he is opposing."

Page xiv

"It may be this same unclarity, of something akin to it, that leads Wittgenstein to speak more than once in the Blue Book of 'the calculus of language' . . . -- although he has also said that it is only in very rare cases that we use language as a calculus. If you have not distinguished between a language and a notation, you may hardly see any difference between following a language and following a notation. But in that case you may very well be unclear about the difficulties in connection with the relation between language and logic.

"Those difficulties become much clearer in the Brown Book, even though he does not explicitly refer to them there. We might say that they are the principal theme of the Investigations."

". . . And once again we find that Wittgenstein in the Investigations is making these discussions into an exposition of the philosophical difficulties, in a way that he has not done in the Brown Book."

> Wittgenstein isn't attempting a comprehensive account of them in the B&BBs.

Or, as proposed by Rhees, he doesn't yet see the implications and the underlying causes of the confusion he is reaching for in those earlier works! How are we to know if Rhees is right or you are? How can we know what he recognized in earlier works in which the recognition is not there or not clear? Must we assume it? Take it on faith?

> So, for example, B&BBs do not address the issue of "seeing as" (venturing in to what Wittgenstein called "philosophy of psychology"). Nor does the Brown Book (BrB) address the big philosophic questions, because it was specifically written to EXCLUDE such declarations.

How do you know "it was specifically written to EXCLUDE such declarations"? What about the evidence adduced by Rhees that he is insufficiently clear in the earlier works or seems to waver between views?

> It doesn't tell us what philosophy's mission is in light of the new techniques; it just shows the new technique.

Including the confusions that Rhees notes?

> This is entirely consistent with Monk, who describes the work as if it were attempted as a textbook. That, incidentally, is all the proof you need to see that Wittgenstein never intended to
>

What is all the proof I need? That Monk said it? Or that it CAN be read that way? But that reading doesn't exclude Rhees' reading and Rhees explicitly identifies inconsistencies and unclarities in the earlier works (only some of which I have so far transcribed above).

> offer the BrB for publishing.

I don't purport to have independent evidence that he considered the Brown Book as the basis for a document he intended to publish for a time except Rhees' word. But Rhees is a credible witness.

Your "proof" seems to consist of 1) Monk's not saying he did; 2) the fact that he didn't; and 3) that the two documents in question did duty as material for his students' reading and review.

It seems to me that your "proof" in the end is just a conclusion you draw from the three above facts.

On the other hand, I haven't said I have "proof" at all, only that we have the assessment of a credible witness and the fact that what we see for ourselves in those documents also seem to be consistent with his interpretation. He also notes that there is evidence Wittgenstein worked for a while in private on a German version of the Brown Book and ultimately scrawled across it a statement that it was all "worthless". Shortly afterwards you note that Monk indicates he began working on the manuscript that became the first part of the published Investigations. Note that this IS consistent with Rhees' assessment of these facts.

I've also noted that I find your proposal, that Wittgenstein's new ideas were fully formed by 1930, roughly a year after his return to Cambridge, a bit far-fetched given the record showing he "pottered" about for a decade with his writings and that there are, as Rhees shows, inconsistencies and unclarities in some of them which are finally ironed out with the Investigations, a fact that is consistent with a picture of him gradually building his philosophical edifice as he became increasingly clear on the issues and how to address them.

None of this is to say that he did not already have new ideas in mind when he returned to Cambridge in '29. It's just to note that those ideas took a while to form, in the decade between his return and their full flowering as the Investigations and On Certainty. Such a period would rightly be called transitional.

> As I told you before, a close reading of Rhees doesn't dispute this. Rhees is saying that, because he started working on the BrB again in 38, that what he was working on THEN might have had an eye toward publishing. (But this argument would apply to any typescript he worked on, and is confronted by all sorts of historical declarations to the contrary, which is why Rhees says it so feebly --"might have," "an eye toward," "once"). 
>

Rhees (p. vii): "The Brown Book was rather different [from the Blue Book], and for a time he thought of it as a draft of something he might publish. He started more than once to make revisions of a German version of it. The last was in August, 1936. He brought this, with some minor changes and insertions, to the beginning of the discussion of vuluntary action --"

> Here's the bottom line. Every single theme that Rhees talks about being absent in the B&BBs is present in the historical record at or before the time period the books are written. So Wittgenstein is not in a transitory period with the Tractatus at this time. That
> is pure nonsense.

"Nonsense" in which sense? Anyway, see my excerpts from Rhees above. (Unfortunately, though I wanted to more precisely pinpoint the textual points at issue, Rhees is rather verbose on the subject so, to get the full flavor of what he was saying, I had to type quite a bit.) It boils down to claims by Rhees that Wittgenstein inadequately explicated or missed things in the earlier works that he later focused on or which he ultimately made pivotal to his ideas and that the omissions or insufficiently explicated points reflect a less clear picture of what he had in mind at the time of the earlier writings.

> For example, Monk notes that Wittgenstein had a clear conception of the correct method of doing philosophy as early as the autum of 1930. "His lectures for the Michaelmas term began on an apocalyptic note: 'The nimbus of philosophy has been lost,' he announced." (298).

That doesn't suggest a "clear conception", only a realization as to what was wrong. It yet remained for him to develop the ideas which arose from that insight and which explained it. THAT is the point of referencing his "transition" period. During it, he was developing his new insights, gradually building the newer, better picture of philosophy he left us with the Investigations.

> [It continues on]. So, the fact that Rhees is saying that the BrB leaves this stuff out does not mean that the BrB is transitory; it means that Stuart doesn't understand why it is left out. Read Monk. He tells you.
>

Again, this is a question of competing witnesses then? As you know I've read the Monk biography and think well of it though I think you've read it more recently than I. Nevertheless, unless he has evidence to cite that contravenes Rhees' claims, I have no reason to think Monk is a more credible witness than Rhees in this. Have you a reason?

> The reason why the BrB is the way it is, is because Wittgenstein only wanted to create an example of his technique, not a philosophic defense of it.

He says that somewhere? As we know, Rhees notes that Wittgenstein worked on the Brown Book for another purpose:

Rhees (p. vii): "The Brown Book was rather different [from the Blue Book], and for a time he thought of it as a draft of something he might publish. He started more than once to make revisions of a German version of it. The last was in August, 1936. He brought this, with some minor changes and insertions, to the beginning of the discussion of vuluntary action --"

> The BrB should be understood to be the first Wittgensteinian training manual to be produced by the new thoughts. The Blue Book (BlB), in contrast, is only deficient in the sense that it represents what he said to STUDENTS about the new ideas. In this venue, one also would not attempt a comprehensive account. He's exposing his students to the new ideas. He's not trying for a New Testament in that forum.
>
> My point, of course, is not that there are not nuances in Wittgenstein's new thought that developed from 30-39 (the period we are talking about). My point is that any nuances cannot be classified as being "in transition with the Tractatus."
>

Ah maybe this is the problem after all the sturm und drang. I did not intend to say that he was the same Tractarian Wittgenstein when he returned to Cambridge in '29 as he had been when he completed that work roughly a decade before! If that is what you took me as saying then I clearly did not make myself well understood.

In fact, the period before he returned to Cambridge was also part of the transition. Certainly when he returned to Cambridge he already had these new ideas roiling about in his brain. As I said earlier, THAT would have been a main reason for his decision to return, i.e., that he realized he had gotten a lot wrong in the Tractatus and saw a need to do further work in philosophy! My point about a transition in the following decade is to note that he was feeling his way toward a fuller understanding and _expression_ of the new ideas.

I do not see any reason to think that they sprang fully formed into his head and only needed to be drawn out adequately. Ideas are dynamic and that is why getting them out is often a work in progress. Perhaps this debate rides on a misunderstanding between us then?

> Here's where you are fundamentally mistaken. The point that is transitory is the 1930 work that reflected the work during 1929-30 academic year (and the summer before, I believe). That's the one he had to get Russell to vouch for. That's Philosophic Remarks. It was completed in April of 1930. It's "transitory" because it adopts several "strange" views:  it is especially Kantian, and it is, according to Monk, his most strident verificationist work (at least, seemingly). He backed off and completely overhauled this segment of thought, which we first see in Philosophic Grammar (1932), representing his thoughts from late 1930 to 1932. The point where Wittgenstein's mind goes into the "new way" is in late 1930, Monk
says, not long after he had just written Philosophic Remarks.
> He made comments to Drury to that effect (see Monk, 297). (See point above about his Fall lectures that year) 
>
> (You will also note that the updated version of the Tractatus that was planned to be written with Waisman's help was officially junked by Wittgenstein in late 1931. See Monk at 320).
>

Perhaps the problem here is in what we each mean by "transitional"? You seem to see it as a radical switching over, as if a switch was suddenly pulled in his brain sending his thought onto another track. I see it as an ongoing process, one that proceeds in fits and starts, sometimes evidencing great leaps and sometimes incremental changes. Where do we draw the transitional line? Your evidence suggests that Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge with a vaguely formed notion of his errors and in a single year seized on the solutions. My view is that, even if true that he made a big jump in that first year, the evidence of his subsequent writings indicates that he did not reach a fully formed and sufficiently clear _expression_ of the ideas, which is to say an understanding of them, until years later. The intervening writings show the changes occurring as well as various ongoing inconsistencies, inadequate explications, etc.

Frankly, I find the idea that he was like Moses returning from the mountaintop unconvincing even if his period on the mountaintop did produce in him a sea change in his way of seeing things (or seem to do that, since I am of the opinion that even abrupt changes in our ideas occur from experiences and ideas already sown).

SWM

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Re: The Theological Dispute between Sean and Stuart,

With all due respect to both of our fellow list members' positions (albeit in varying different degrees), while I have appreciated the opportunity to inspect various ACTUAL statements by Wittgenstein (and to a lesser extent some of his disciples such as Rhees and Monk, whom I consider, by the way, to only be reporters and to possess no especial gifts of insight into matters philosophical and determing my own 'practice" ) ; and while I have taken note of some of the "facts" and "dates" of publication to which your "theological" discussion has led me, I frankly do not care very much about what "facts" either of you "believes" to be the appropriate "mythology" background of the Wittgensteinian texts insofar as the nature and validity of your comments don't impact much on how I plan to continue in my 'practice" of reading and examining the Wittgensteinian texts themselves (they can only say what they say) or in my own thoughts in regard to the issues I sense they raise as I read them.

This is not because I think that both are wrong or completely illogical, or that one of them is more correct than the other, or that they "contradict" each other in any meaning ful way but, oddly enough, in view of the parallel thread in this list pertaining to "religious experience", I believe that your 'controversy" and its limited relevance to the "practice" embodies perfectly the issues taken up (at least partially) in the thread on religious experience and the Martin paper. As the reader (who wishes to bear with me on this adventure) can note, I have expressly sought to frame my point in terms of the vocabulary of that other 'thread' pertaining to "varieties of religious experience"

THE "PRACTICE" of EXAMINING ÅND BENEFITTING FROM W's WRITING vs THE THEOLOGICAL QUIBBLING OVER HISTORICAL FACTS

Actually, the controversy smacks of various Christian theological and other sorts of discussions of ostensible empirically grounded "facts" which, ultimately, in no way actually impact on the "belief" of those who choose to engage in a "practice". In this case, the practice is (for me at least) , for God's sake, just reading what Wittgenstein had to say and making sense of it as best as we can and then "going on" beyond bickering into making the practice of reading Wittgenstein a productive and useful one, in terms of going on to understand issues in our world which deal with politics, psychology, science, religion, anthropology and so on.

In the end, I hope that most of us are interested in the "practice" of coming to understand Wittgenstein's work as part of a "life" in which it plays a role, instead of failing to "get a life" and digging into theological ruminations about which disciple said what and when and what was going on in the inner recesses of Wittgensteins' mind at which moment of time. And I hope that this understanding is not based on an exegetical quibbling over the mythology of the past but on making use of the words written to actually achieve something in our lives and careers by sharpening our grasp of the "language games" within which our lives are lived.

Those of us who are members of this list actually will more or less very likely admit or confess to a "belief" in the value and merits of the words upon which we spend our time. This value and merit has very little to do with the supposed "mythology" of who said what , much like Christian arguers and bickerers can endlessly contest which disciple of Christ or which theologian of antiquity said what and when, and which proved closer to inner essence of the intent or nature or qualities of Christ, while pursing a practice on a daily basis from which they benefit either in spirit, or skills, or health, or simply the pursuit of their happiness.

When we view a controversy of this kind, I believe that many of us (I certainly) take everything either of you say about what was on Wittgenstein's mind and in his heart at any given moment in time with a grain of salt. Fine.

And, as the ongoing proliferation of theological reasoning about supposed ideas on the minds of various folks last century goes on and on, it is clear that there is an issue of 'belief" here (that we can and ,according to Wittgenstein, easily do tolerate), but that there is no useful issue or relevance to our "practice" here of whether or not any alleged given fact that either disputant can point to and allege in the words of yet another pointer and alleger in the past, or, going further back,whether any supposed ideas of Monk or Rhees, can be considered worthy of much more than passing interest in terms of how it impacts on our 'belief" and our interest in and continued urge to engage in the practice...and making use of the Wittgenstein in a productive way.

THE UNDERCUTTING or DISTRACTION FROM "PRACTICE" by ATTACKING or ENTANGLING IN HISTORICAL MYTHOLOGY

My own suspicion here is that what we have here is that one of you, SWM,, as I read many of his pejorative comments in regard to modus operandi of Wittgenstein in putting down his words ( "disingenuous" , "confused", and so on ) possessed of a provocative inclination and underlying hypercritical and sometimes contemptuous view of Wittgenstein's words and who routinely seeks to have recourse to some kind of gossip (referred to above as 'mythology") in order to distract and undercut the "belief" that others of us have in the 'usefulness' of dealing directly with the philosophical concepts of Wittgenstein (NOTE: I did not state that this "belief" of many of us in devoting our energies to W's words is one in the absolute correctness or divinity of his statements, but only in the usefulness of thoroughgoing and actual examination of his words as "our practice').

Moreover, there seems to be a clear pattern of opinion on SWM's part, as expressed in regard to his own experiences in other areas of 'belief" in his religious background, and in his Zen background, and in other areas of his life, where he becomes entangled in and focuses upon the concern with the ostensible mythologies or "justifications" of patterns of conduct and involvements in these 'games" of life in order to have discredited the practices (at least for himself in those instances....and clearly by insinuation and innuendo in the case of the adherence to actually dealing with the statements of Wittgenstein without basing statement on one sort of gossip or another

By doing so, I sense that SWM has somehow acted as a gadfly or provocateur and triggered a defense on the part of another one of us, Sean, in regard to the implications of the implicit "theological" assault on the practice, (which I find commendable on Sean's part), but which I find to be much akin to the defending response of a "believer" and bonafide participant in a certain school of religious thought, or, as some have said, a devoted "participant" in a certain "language game" embodying a form of life being goaded into a needless support of the belief in the validity of the examination of the texts themselves. In this current situation, the "form of life" of relevance which entails involvement, is 'philosophical pursuit" as opposed to that form of life which we have discussed in our other thread and which entails "spiritual and/or religious involvement".

So we can see for ourselves how the goading of a participant in a "practice" by a theoligcal quibbling can lead to a digression by the 'believer" which leads to indulging and enabling an expedition into 'mythological" background which is not at all necessary, but which only serves to distract from the 'practice' and what many of us are on this site to get on with. And whichever way such a needless excursion into "beliefs that " various historical facts either were or were not the case eventuates, it misses the point and can only distract from our "belief IN" the usefulness of the 'practice" itself.

In other words, what I mean to say by way of this adventure into analogy is to those who seek in ensnare those in the 'practice", by means of innuendo and implicit derogation, into theological bickering: "Get a Life".....and indeed, hopefully, that is the point of the "practice" of devotion to the examination of Wittgenstein's text is supposed to do for us...give us a means of productively integrating his wisdom into our lives and the progress of our society.

HOW, AFTER ÅLL, IS THE GAP BRIDGED BETWEEN FORM OF LIFE and LANGUAGE GAMES:

In a footnote to all this, which, by the way, might actually have some bearing on the "practice" of directly confronting and examining and benefitting fromWittgensteins ideas, it seems that, as I have been writing this journalistic critique of the SWM/Sean controversy, I have noted that, while commentators, including us, routinely acknowledge the importance of "forms of life" and "language games" and the relevance of the two to each other, there is a significant gap in our speaking of these---perhaps because there is no explicit linkage of these two in Wittgenstein's work.

That gap, it appears, is the mystery of just how some of us....or even all of us..... ever find ourselves involved in one or another language game as an embodiment of our predicament and situation within a "form of life". Isn't this where the question of "belief" has to enter in....with the "belief" being not so much the belief ithat the "facts" of the mythology behind the practice which motivates or justifies our engaging in that practice are either this or that, but the "belief in" the validity of that practice which arises as part of the act and activity of joining in and allows the participating in the language game. Just a thought for those of us who wish to get beyond the bickering which results from being distracted by some of us into endless historical, empirical based theologizing and gossip. Perhaps we can actually, one day, get down to examiing just how various language games are rooted and emergent from various forms of life.......and whether Wittgenstein gives us any clues of this....or whether we must extend his work in order to gain clarity into this relationship.

On Dec 8, 2009, at 11:47 AM, SWM wrote:

> As you know I've read the Monk biography

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 11:47 AM, CJ <castalia@optonline.net> wrote:
> Re: The Theological Dispute between Sean and Stuart,

For my part, I folded passing mention of this thread (re B&B books)
into a blog post:
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2009/12/study-group.html

Works well in this context.

Kirby

--
>>> from mars import math
http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math
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Sean and Stuart,

There was only one Wittgenstein.

No, that's not to speak of his singular contribution to philosophical thought. Nor yet is it to indicate a commitment to readings which downplay the differences between the _Tractatus_ and later works.

It's a reminder that we are dealing with a single human being, his life, and the development of his thought..

When we discuss and debate "transitional periods" perhaps we should pause to ask "from what?" and "to what?"

And we should consider that we are always, all of us, changing in this way and that, going through transitions of various sorts.

But surely there is a definitely sense to the idea that Wittgenstein's thought can be divided into various periods and that we can identify certain periods of his life as transitional between those periods?

Certainly.

But I want to ask, "What purpose does such a periodization serve?"

There is the potential pedagogical value of simply giving a bit of organization to the story of his life and work. If that were the only thing at issue, what would be the point of debating one classificatory scheme or another?

Another way of asking my question: what are we to do with a system that divides Wittgenstein's work into periods? What use is it? What follows from a particular work being placed in one period or another?

Considering such questions isn't merely about assessing the importance of a controversy and putting disagreements into perspective (something I am all too aware can easily be lost), but perhaps a clue to how we should go about answering more specific questions about various schemes and the place of various works within those schemes, possibly even a clue to the role and weight appropriate to various testimony.

For me, the main value in grouping Wittgenstein's work into periods is interpretive. I'll specify what I mean by that shortly but first I want to say that a biographer or historian may have other purposes, equally legitimate for their work, and that with different purposes they may also arrive at somewhat different schema. This may have some relevance to disputes in these matters, though I haven't thought through or researched what specific differences might arise.

As for the value of grouping Wittgenstein's works into periods for purposes of interpretation, I would elaborate by saying that such periodization provides a "rule of thumb" (or several such rules) for assessing how far we should go, when comparing remarks from different works, in trying to reconcile seeming contradictions or resolve apparent tensions. And when we should be more or less inclined to stop and say, "No, he clearly changed his mind between these two works."

Or, applying such a rule of thumb to a closely related problem, we could ask, "To what extent are remarks in this work a useful guide to understanding remarks made in another?" Here, periodization suggests that some groupings of works (works from the same period) are more likely than other goupings (works from distinct periods) to represent a cohesive set of views.

Works from one period are then presumably less reliable as tools to help us understand works from a different period than works from the same period would be. That is basically what such a "rule of thumb" would tell us.

But note: such a rule of thumb tells us only where our presumption should be. It is not conclusive. Note as well that "less reliable" does not mean "useless". First of all, even works which seem to clearly disagree may still assist us in understanding why Wittgenstein changed his mind. Second, there's no reason to suppose that, even between TLP and OC, there are not some points of agreement.

In considering a scheme that groups Wittgenstein's thought and works into periods, we should consider several questions:

Is it a matter of positions being discarded or of positions being added? Or both? And how central are the positions in question to the overall way of thinking?

And we may try to draw a distinction between a new position and a position undergoing some refinement.

We may also attempt to draw a distinction between a change of position and a change in how that position is presented.

Some caveats to consider here. First, referring to "positions" ought to give us pause in considering Wittgenstein's works. This requires some elaboration and careful reflection. Second, we shouldn't be to rigid in distinguishing between positions and their presentation (between content and form) in Wittgenstein's works because the presentation itself is relevant to the wider conception of philosophy, to understanding the purpose that elucidations are meant to serve.

But an example:

I would be inclined to call the differences between PI 1-188 and later work (the remainder of the PI and final works on philosophy of psychology, color, and epistemology) "additions". I don't see the insights of the beginning of the PI being rejected but rather new insights, consonant with those, being incorporated.

And within those later works, I see more refinements of position and changes in presentation than anything else. Still, these last works are clearly "work in progress" and Wittgenstein, had he lived, would undoubtedly have continued working over them.

I've deliberately chosen an illustration that sidesteps the current controversy and that is, I would hope, not contentious to either side. But now, I'll venture to indicate how my own rules of thumb would compare and contrast with both of your positions.

The period of 1929/1930 was a period of casting off key theses of the _Tractatus_. If any period is rightly called "transitional" it is this one. Core ideas in the early work were being reconsidered and rejected. It wasn't enough to refine positions in light of the color exclusion problem.. It was as if Wittgenstein were on a ship that kept springing leaks faster than he could repair them. He had to abandon ship. (Another metaphor is falling dominoes.)

A case could readily be made that by the end of this period, Wittgenstein had at least a general of where he needed to go by the end of this brief period.

But there is still a vast difference between someone saying, "Eureka!" (or, "The nimbus of philosophy has been lost.") and Athena springing forth, fully armed and armored, from the head of Zeus!

There are refinements and additions (as noted in, e.g. G.E.Moore's lecture notes) throughout 1930-1933, culminating in the work we now know through _Philosophical_Grammar_ and the section "Philosophy" included in _Philosophical_Occasions_ and finally published together in _The_Big_Typescript_. And even in that 1933 work, there are also approaches to problems (especially in mathematics and formal logic) that show vestiges of the old way of thinking.

Moreover, even in the 1933 work, we see various experiments and we do not see all of the later themes - certainly not in their mature form.

But there's a vast difference between saying that he was still developing his new approach and saying that he was still breaking free of the Tractatus.

It seems to me that Sean is using "transitional" to mean "still breaking free of the _Tractatus_" and Stuart is using "transitional" to mean "still developing his new approach."

Sean says that Wittgenstein had broken free in 1930. I am inclined to describe this as a longer process, but a process that we could say was well completed in 1933, with the works mentioned.

(But consider, OC 321. The temptations of TLP are perhaps never fully exorcised, only more quickly recognized for what they are. Still, if we take that line, then it's all "transitional". We could say that, but it would be quite misleading.)

The period between 1933 and the completion of PI 1-188, the period in which _Blue_and_Brown_Books_ were composed, is another matter. Stuart is right that there are refinements, e.g. of the role and purpose of discussing "language games", some of which could be called refinements of presentation and some refinements of position. But these are additions to the new method, not rejections of ideas from the _Tractatus_! We could say he was "in transition" (aren't we all?) but transitioning from what? To what?

If we call this "transitional", having already used that word to describe the transition away from the ideas of the _Tractatus_, that can only mislead! The idea that he was still, in the latter half of the 1930s, "transitioning" away from that early work is very misleading.

Now, I've put forth what I see as the value in arranging Wittgenstein's works into periods. The "rule of thumb" I've proposed would suggest that we should not expect consistency between the later works and works such as _Remarks_on_Logical_Form, the _Lecture_on_Ethics_, _Philosophical_Remarks_ and the various lectures recorded between 1930 and 1933 (though of course lecture notes raise other questions of reliability as well). When we encounter an apparent contradiction, it is well warranted to say, "He changed his mind". And these works are not a good guide to interpreting later remarks.

Remarks we know from _Philosophical_Grammar_ and _Big_Typescript_ and moreso, _Blue_and_Brown_Books_ should show much more consistency with still later work, but where there is a clear inconsistency with _Philosophical_Investigations_, we should still say, "He changed his mind."

That doesn't mean we should say, "He still hadn't rejected _Tractarian_ ideas," or, "He hadn't yet started doing philosophy in the new way," but simply that he was constantly developing and refining both his ideas and his way of presenting them.

More importantly, it is perfectly legitimate, in the absence of inconsistencies, to cite remarks from 1933 onward as evidence of Wittgenstein's later views. Part of this "rule of thumb" is that the burden shifts from a presumption of unreliability or possible inconsistency to a presumption of consistency. The burden is on the person challenging the reliability of a remark to show that it is contradicted by remarks in the canonical PI 1-188 or should be rejected on the basis of methodological remarks from PI 89-133 in that same canonical collection.

Now, calling something a "rule of thumb" suggests that there is a more refined and reliable (but presumably less convenient) method available that this rule. But it may also be that there are merely several complementary rules and that any refinement comes from weighing the results of each. In any case, the guidance a rule of thumb offers is defeasible.

I've indicated how a remark from BTS, PG, or BB might be rejected. But there are also narrower cases where the rule itself would be rejected or refined.. For instance, I would not take a remark from 1933 about impossibility proofs in mathematics as presumptively consistent with and accurately reflecting all of his later views on mathematics. As we go deeper, the rule of thumb becomes less valuable than the careful, painstaking process of close reading and comparative study.

JPDeMouy

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, J DeMouy <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
<snip>

>
> But I want to ask, "What purpose does such a periodization serve?"
>

A good point. I actually didn't think much of the issue when I happened to note that certain citations of Wittgenstein were taken from the Blue Book and so ought not to be considered definitive as to his ideas because the Blue Book was transitional and was not written directly by him.

Sean apparently became concerned that this position of mine reflected a misunderstanding on my part about Wittgenstein's development and so called me to task for promulgating what he described as false information about Wittgenstein on this list. My response was only to show it wasn't "false" in the senst that it is a creditable and respectable opinion, traceable to a perfectly reliable source, whatever other opinions and interpetations may be out there.

Somehow everything then took off from there.

In truth, I have no argument with Sean's contention that the Wittgenstein at the beginning of the decade in question was already a changed man from the Tractarian Wittgenstein. I just consider that the rest of that decade was part of his "transitional" period. But, truthfully, one can define "transitional" in a variety of ways. I don't think my use of the term necessarily denies Sean's.

I am also reminded of Avrum Stroll's book (I forget the title) which holds there were actually three distinct Wittgensteinian periods: the Tractarian Wittgenstein, the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations and the Wittgenstein of On Certainty. Frankly, I find that claim unconvincing because it seems to me that On Certainty ties directly into the PI Wittgenstein, but it is at least another view on the subject, i.e., three Wittgensteins not two. (Of course neither three nor two distinct persons are meant!)

<snip>

>
> Another way of asking my question: what are we to do with a system that divides Wittgenstein's work into periods? What use is it? What follows from a particular work being placed in one period or another?
>

It's just a convenient way of classifying his different approaches and positions. Since in his case we do have an example of a radical departure between the first period and the second in terms of practices and ideas (with a lull of some ten intervening years wherein he is mostly silent), it becomes possible to categorize in this way. With philosophers who have no lull periods but write continuously we perhaps get changing ideas that all seem to blend together, making such a distinction less feasible.

<snip>

>
> "less reliable" does not mean "useless". First of all, even works which seem to clearly disagree may still assist us in understanding why Wittgenstein changed his mind. Second, there's no reason to suppose that, even between TLP and OC, there are not some points of agreement.
>

Yes, all quite true.

<snip>

> I would be inclined to call the differences between PI 1-188 and later work (the remainder of the PI and final works on philosophy of psychology, color, and epistemology) "additions". I don't see the insights of the beginning of the PI being rejected but rather new insights, consonant with those, being incorporated.
>

> And within those later works, I see more refinements of position and changes in presentation than anything else. Still, these last works are clearly "work in progress" and Wittgenstein, had he lived, would undoubtedly have continued working over them.
>

> I've deliberately chosen an illustration that sidesteps the current controversy and that is, I would hope, not contentious to either side. But now, I'll venture to indicate how my own rules of thumb would compare and contrast with both of your positions.
>

> The period of 1929/1930 was a period of casting off key theses of the _Tractatus_. If any period is rightly called "transitional" it is this one. Core ideas in the early work were being reconsidered and rejected. It wasn't enough to refine positions in light of the color exclusion problem.. It was as if Wittgenstein were on a ship that kept springing leaks faster than he could repair them. He had to abandon ship. (Another metaphor is falling dominoes.)
>

> A case could readily be made that by the end of this period, Wittgenstein had at least a general of where he needed to go by the end of this brief period.
>

> But there is still a vast difference between someone saying, "Eureka!" (or, â??The nimbus of philosophy has been lost.") and Athena springing forth, fully armed and armored, from the head of Zeus!
>

> There are refinements and additions (as noted in, e.g. G.E.Moore's lecture notes) throughout 1930-1933, culminating in the work we now know through _Philosophical_Grammar_ and the section "Philosophy" included in _Philosophical_Occasions_ and finally published together in _The_Big_Typescript_. And even in that 1933 work, there are also approaches to problems (especially in mathematics and formal logic) that show vestiges of the old way of thinking.
>

> Moreover, even in the 1933 work, we see various experiments and we do not see all of the later themes - certainly not in their mature form.
>

> But there's a vast difference between saying that he was still developing his new approach and saying that he was still breaking free of the Tractatus.
>

Of course I didn't say that though I think Sean took me as saying it!

> It seems to me that Sean is using "transitional" to mean "still breaking free of the _Tractatus_" and Stuart is using "transitional" to mean "still developing his new approach."
>

Yes, precisely!

> Sean says that Wittgenstein had broken free in 1930. I am inclined to describe this as a longer process, but a process that we could say was well completed in 1933, with the works mentioned.
>

> (But consider, OC 321. The temptations of TLP are perhaps never fully exorcised, only more quickly recognized for what they are. Still, if we take that line, then it's all "transitional". We could say that, but it would be quite misleading.)
>

> The period between 1933 and the completion of PI 1-188, the period in which _Blue_and_Brown_Books_ were composed, is another matter. Stuart is right that there are refinements, e.g. of the role and purpose of discussing "language games", some of which could be called refinements of presentation and some refinements of position. But these are additions to the new method, not rejections of ideas from the _Tractatus_! We could say he was "in transition" (aren't we all?) but transitioning from what? To what?
>

> If we call this "transitional", having already used that word to describe the transition away from the ideas of the _Tractatus_, that can only mislead! The idea that he was still, in the latter half of the 1930s, "transitioning" away from that early work is very misleading.
>

A nice way of bringing us all together. I cannot disagree with your portrayal here!

<snip>

> When we encounter an apparent contradiction, it is well warranted to say, "He changed his mind". And these works are not a good guide to interpreting later remarks.
>

> Remarks we know from _Philosophical_Grammar_ and _Big_Typescript_ and moreso, _Blue_and_Brown_Books_ should show much more consistency with still later work, but where there is a clear inconsistency with _Philosophical_Investigations_, we should still say, "He changed his mind."
>

> That doesn't mean we should say, "He still hadn't rejected _Tractarian_ ideas," or, "He hadn't yet started doing philosophy in the new way," but simply that he was constantly developing and refining both his ideas and his way of presenting them.
>

Yes, of course!

> More importantly, it is perfectly legitimate, in the absence of inconsistencies, to cite remarks from 1933 onward as evidence of Wittgenstein's later views. Part of this "rule of thumb" is that the burden shifts from a presumption of unreliability or possible inconsistency to a presumption of consistency. The burden is on the person challenging the reliability of a remark to show that it is contradicted by remarks in the canonical PI 1-188 or should be rejected on the basis of methodological remarks from PI 89-133 in that same canonical collection.
>

Yes, again.

> Now, calling something a "rule of thumb" suggests that there is a more refined and reliable (but presumably less convenient) method available that this rule. But it may also be that there are merely several complementary rules and that any refinement comes from weighing the results of each. In any case, the guidance a rule of thumb offers is defeasible.
>

> I've indicated how a remark from BTS, PG, or BB might be rejected. But there are also narrower cases where the rule itself would be rejected or refined.. For instance, I would not take a remark from 1933 about impossibility proofs in mathematics as presumptively consistent with and accurately reflecting all of his later views on mathematics. As we go deeper, the rule of thumb becomes less valuable than the careful, painstaking process of close reading and comparative study.
>

I can agree with everything above and I would be surprised if Sean does not, as well. I think the dispute with Sean is indicative of a misunderstanding between us, nothing more. Perhaps I was insufficiently clear in my initial comments which kicked off the recent exchange. If so, I shall try to be clearer, of course.

SWM

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Sean,

Connecting this thread to the book I've previously mentioned, _Austrian_Philosophy:_The_Legacy_of_Fran_ Brentano_ by Barry Smith.

You've mentioned in a couple of time this thread, "...Philosophical Remarks, reflecting his thoughts during the period of 1929-1930...is, paradoxically, most Kantian while it is also seemingly-most verificationist."

I want to suggest that PR may be better understood as "Brentanian" rather than "Kantian" in its conception of necessity and the a priori. The references to "phenomenology" are a clue. Also, verificationist ideas are much less "paradoxical" in a Brentanian (or more specifically, Husserlian) context than they would be in a Kantian one. And broadly Brentanian views of the a priori were widely discussed in Austrian philosophical circles, including the Vienna Circle, as well as among Austrian psychologists Wittgenstein is known to have read and discussed.

From pp. 19 & 20 of Smith,

" As has been often noted, the very project of phenomenology - the project of
providing a painstakingly adequate description of what is given in experience
precisely as it is given - can be regarded simply as a more comprehensive and
more radical version of phenomenalism in the traditional sense, so that Hermann
Lübbe, for example, finds no difficulty in asserting that `Ernst Mach and other
critical empiricists, regardless of their "positivism", belong in the tradition of
phenomenology.´ (1960, p. 91 of translation) The two strands of Austrian
positive philosophy were at one stage so closely intertwined that Husserl could
be considered as a potential successor to Mach in the chair in Vienna.33 Guido
Küng has defended the view that there are quite specific parallels between
Husserlian phenomenology and the project of `explication´ that is defended by
Carnap in his Aufbau.34 A view of this sort was advanced already in 1932 by
Ernst Polak, a student of Schlick and man about town in Vienna - Polak was
inter alia the husband of Kafka´s Milena - in a clearly Wittgenstein-inspired
dissertation entitled Critique of Phenomenology by Means of Logic. The sense
of phenomenology, according to Polak, `is logic (grammar in the most general
sense), clarification of what we mean when we speak; its results are tautologies;
its findings not statements, but explications´ (1932, p. 157).

" As is seen from Wittgenstein´s own repeated employment of the terminology
of `phenomenology´, particularly around 1929, it is primarily in regard to the
problem of the synthetic a priori, of an `intermediary between logic and
physics´, that Husserl´s thinking is crucial to the development of Austrian
positivism. Husserl´s account of the synthetic a priori is indeed no less
important to the Vienna circle than that of Kant,35 for where Kant - in
conformity with his special reading of what it is to be `synthetic´ - sees the
realm of the synthetic a priori as residing in the relatively restricted and
cognitively inaccessible sphere of transcendental consciousness, Husserl claims
that there is a directly accessible a priori dimension across the entire range of
experience - so that vastly more propositions turn out to be synthetic and a
priori on Husserl´s view than on that of Kant - including such homely examples
as `nothing can be both red and green all over´ to which Wittgenstein and the
Vienna positivists devoted a great deal of their attention.36 From the standpoint
of the positivists, synthetic a priori propositions do not and cannot exist: all true
propositions are either tautologies of logic or contingent truths relating to
empirical matters of fact. For Husserl, in contrast, there are entire disciplines of
synthetic a priori truths, including the discipline of phenomenology, and it is
fascinating to observe the extent to which the positivists are driven to
unsupported claims as to the `logical´ character of Husserl´s theses (or to ad hoc
adjustments of the sense of `logical´) in the face of the quite evidently
extralogical or `material´ character of many of his examples."

Clearly, this is a rather partisan characterization of matters, but it is also informative. The scope of "grammar" in Wittgenstein's later work, the variety of "grammatical rules" is in no small part a response to this problematic.

Understanding these ideas can help us to see why Wittgenstein might have briefly looked to phenomenology as the missing piece that would address the problems (like the color-exclusion problem) in the _Tractatus_ (_Remarks_on_Logical_Form_ also could be considered "phenomenological.") as well as how he would then be led to the view of "grammar" in the later work.

And he is still grappling with phenomenology in _Remarks_on_Colour_, grappling with the idea of some discipline between logic and physics that tells us necessary truths about color.

An intereseting and highly accessible approach to relationships between Phenomenology and Ordinary Language Philosophy (focusing not on Wittgenstein, but Ryle) is the work of ALThomasson at Miami.
http://sites.google.com/site/amiethomasson/

A good introduction to the similarities is her "Conceptual Analysis in Phenomenology and Ordinary Language Philosophy" http://consciousness.anu.edu.au/thomasson/Analyzing%20Meanings--long%20version.doc
also, "Phenomenology and the Development of Analytic Philosophy",
http://consciousness.anu.edu.au/thomasson/Phenomenology%20and%20Analytic%20Philosophy.doc

As I indicated, these are not about Wittgenstein. But the connections between Husserl and Ryle do illustrate similar issues.

JPDeMouy

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:

> 'The behavior of the molecules of H2O on an atomic level cause
> the feature of wetness that we find in water.'

Fine example. Here's my dilemma. The "behavior" (in quotes because not
intentional behavior but mechanical) of molecules are CAUSING (not
wetness as such) but my perception as something being wet.
Perception "of something being this rather than that" is considered
intentional, not mechanical.

So-- according to this formulation you have a non-intentional event
causing an intentional one. Something has to give. On a biological level
this is called vitalism, and rejected. Psychologicall, "causes" are
used. But here "causes" means "reason", an intentional, purposive
concept.

Either (1) molecules "cause" wetness, no psychological observer implied.
Or (2) certain molecules are an occasion for the subject to feel wet.,

> So? Wetness is certainly a property in this physical sense and
>... feeling wetness can be described as a certain kind of system
property
> if minds are describable as process-based systems occurring in brains

Yes.That's #1. A mechanical, physical account. No intentional observer.
"Process-based", here, does not mean psychological processes. If you
asked the person "Do you feel wet?", it would be comparable to typing in
"wet" into google seach. Google doesn't lie, has no opinion.

Is this really your vision of us or do you cling to this because the
alternative seems non-scientific?

bruce

(i.e., various interactive, ongoing physical brain events).

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>

> --- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > 'The behavior of the molecules of H2O on an atomic level cause
> > the feature of wetness that we find in water.'
>
> Fine example. Here's my dilemma. The "behavior" (in quotes because not
> intentional behavior but mechanical) of molecules are CAUSING (not
> wetness as such) but my perception as something being wet.

What is a perception? It's the experience you have of some physical phenomenon or event, no?

The physical causes of this perception are not necessarily the same as the quality of the experience (of the actual seeing of red or feeling something wet). It is at least conceivable that a different kind of entity (differently constructed than we are) might derive different sensations from the same stimuli since the sensations are the message we get, what we are aware of via our nervous systems of the stimuli (understood as the physical phenomena/events) coming our way.

This the perception of wetness could conceivably be felt as something different by an entity with a different processing system -- or not, of course, since Dennett at least proposes that what we sense is precisely what's there. There is a possibility that this is, in fact, true -- but the issue is not what is empirically the case but what is conceptually the case. In terms of the concepts involved, the stimuli are different from the sensations, though in many ordinary circumstances we don't speak in a way that enforces or even recognizes that distinction.

When I say the behavior of the molecules cause the feature we recognize in water as its wetness, I mean that on our level of operation (in contact with uncounted H2O molecules en masse) the stimuli delivered is recognized in us by our processing equipment as what we call wetness. But the wetness isn't necessarily a stand alone phenomenon. Maybe some other entity will have a different sensation than we get from water.

There is no need to invoke (or worry about not being able to invoke) an idea of intention (as in a purpose) to suppose this sort of causation.

> Perception "of something being this rather than that" is considered
> intentional, not mechanical.
>

By "intentional" here do you now mean as in purposive or as in being an instance of aboutness? If purposive, I don't see how that could possibly be relevant. We don't expect perceptions to be what they are either because some external entity intends them to be that or we intend to have them in the way we have them.

If you mean "aboutness" this is even more problematic since this latter concept is rather abstract. Does a snail in the garden have aboutness when it is aware of an obstacle in its path? Did my cat (now dead, unfortunately) have aboutness when she looked at me and meowed for her dinner? Did I have it when I looked at her and recognized her by name and realized what it was she wanted? The usual sense of this is that, of course, we humans have aboutness and some would say so, too, do cats and other such animals. It is more disputable whether the snail or the earthworm or the jellyfish or the amoeba have it at some level. As you probably know, my view is that it's all on a continuum and, while I could not readily draw the line where it would cease to be recognizable as aboutness, I would tend to say that the farther away we get from the demarcation point, in any direction, the more clear the distinction becomes.

So it is not at all clear to me why saying that the wetness of water is caused by the behavior of its molecular constituents on an atomic level, under certain conditions, should require any claim that it takes intentionality qua aboutness to happen.

I just can't see the point of this concern of yours. Perhaps I am just missing it though?

> So-- according to this formulation you have a non-intentional event
> causing an intentional one.

Which "intentional" do you have in mind here?

> Something has to give.

Why, if all the processes involved can be accounted for by a description of certain physical events? What has intentionality to do with any of it?

Of course, as we saw with Walter, intentionality qua aboutness can be presented as a proxy for being conscious (or as one of the features we associate with being conscious) and this, I am guessing, is what you have in mind by the last sentence. In that case the issue is to explain how intentionality (THAT kind, of course, not the purposive kind) comes about via physical processes and, if that is so, where is the problem in supposing that this feature of intentionality is one of the results of certain kinds of physical processes doing certain things in a certain way?

How is it an argument against this latter conclusion to say it can't work because it's asking to account for how a "non-intentional event [causes] an intentional event"? Well, of course it is. THAT is just the point. There is nothing in the concept of such a linkage that makes it an unintelligible statement, e.g., brains cause consciousness.

> On a biological level
> this is called vitalism, and rejected.

How is it called "vitalism"? Where is the "vitalism" in it? Can you demonstrate why it is "vitalism" to say that brains cause consciousness or minds?

In vitalism, of course, some mysterious, inexplicable principle is presumed to be at work that stands over and above the dynamics of ordinary physical phenomena that make physical things interreact. In the matter of biology, a life force is presumed to be present to animate the physical entity and make it live. Similarly, the dualist picture presumes that, for minds to be, minds somehow must co-exist with brains.

But my argument is against just such theses, i.e., I've stated my view that dualism is a mistake because it is not needed to account for minds in a physical world. And yet here you are saying my argument is of a piece with vitalism when it is, in fact, in direct opposition to dualism, the explanation for minds which parallels vitalism as an explanation for living things.

Can you show how my argument is, therefore, vitalism?

> Psychologicall, "causes" are
> used.

Only you are using them.

I am in no way suggesting that water is wet because of the psychology of the water or its atoms or some force behind them, nor because we, as perceivers, decide to feel wetness in the water rather than some other experience!

> But here "causes" means "reason", an intentional, purposive
> concept.
>

Huh???

> Either (1) molecules "cause" wetness, no psychological observer implied.

Wetness is a phenomenon perceived by observers, true, but whatever it is that wetness is, independent of any observer, would still be wet without anyone to feel it! Whether we are there to feel the wetness or to call it wetness is irrelevant to the physical explanation of wetness being caused by the behavior of certain molecules on an atomic level under certain conditions.


> Or (2) certain molecules are an occasion for the subject to feel wet.,
>

An occasion? You mean if the subject touched the water, having lost his or her capacity to feel anything due to some neurological accident, we would not still want to say the water is wet???? Does the wetness go away if all perceivers do? Well in a phenomenological sense, yes, indeed. But so what? Let's assume humans no longer existed in the universe and nothing like us did either. That doesn't mean that water would cease to be what it is, do what it does, under certain conditions! True, the concept of wetness would presumably be gone. But this isn't about the concept of wetness but about the phenomenon of wetness and the cause of that phenomenon IN US is the behavior of certain molecules under certain conditions.

> > So? Wetness is certainly a property in this physical sense and
> >... feeling wetness can be described as a certain kind of system
> property
> > if minds are describable as process-based systems occurring in brains
>
> Yes.That's #1. A mechanical, physical account. No intentional observer.

Well, of course, I am giving what you call a "mechanical, physical account" of water and, by analogy, of how brains produce minds which consist of the perceivers of that wetness!

> "Process-based", here, does not mean psychological processes.

Not in the case of the water but it is presumably at the base of psychological events in us.

Is a psychological process a physical process? Well insofar as it is indentifiable with any given mental event that psychologists and lay people would want to call a "psychological process", it would be. Normally, though, what we mean by "psychological process" would mean some activity we carry out in our minds or which happen in our minds without, perhaps, our full awareness of it. Performing a mathematical calculation would thus be a psychological process. So would thinking about the definition of a word, solving a puzzle, imagining a steak dinner, remembering a lost loved one, regretting a mistake, etc.

Of course, I am arguing that all of these "psychological processes" (what I have elsewhere called mental events) can be explained by describing a certain kind of physical process based system. THAT is just the point of everything I have continually said on this subject.

To demonstrate that it cannot be (not that it is not because I haven't argued for what is, only for what may be the case), you need to show why it isn't conceivable that such psychological processes can be the result of, the function of, certain physical processes going on in the brain.

>If you
> asked the person "Do you feel wet?", it would be comparable to typing in
> "wet" into google seach. Google doesn't lie, has no opinion.
>

So?

> Is this really your vision of us or do you cling to this because the
> alternative seems non-scientific?
>
> bruce

It seems to me perfectly reasonable to say that brains are the source (the cause) of minds and to further say that the account that suggests that minds are just a certain array of features like intentionality, understanding, perceiving, thinking, remembering, etc. which can be produced by certain physical processes (such as we see going on in computers) doing certain things in brains is a reasonable way to explain how brains play their causative role.

Against this view we have a supposition that minds are either ultimately unknowable (a mysterious adjunct in the universe) or that they are part of the universe as a co-existent that is ontologically independent of the rest of the world of physics.

I think the second explanation, while conceivable, is unreasonable at this point, given what we know about brains and the universe via contemporary scientific knowledge.

This really is an endless debate, isn't it? This is the same thing I have been saying to you about this since we began our discussions on the matter two or three lists ago. Perhaps we should just finally agree to disagree and move on to new vistas of discourse here?

SWM

=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

Duhaene

This introductory chapter attempts to clarify the philosophical,
empirical, and theoretical bases on which a cognitive neuroscience
approach to consciousness can be founded. We isolate three major
empirical observations that any theory of consciousness should
incorporate, namely (1) a considerable amount of processing is possible
without consciousness, (2) attention is a prerequisite of consciousness,
and (3) consciousness is required for some specific cognitive tasks,
including those that require durable information maintenance, novel
combinations of operations, or the spontaneous generation of intentional
behavior.

I copied the critical paragraph from more complete Post. I recognized
that you can't get to all my Posts.
--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:

> What is a perception? It's the experience you have of some physical
phenomenon or event, no?

Tentatively, OK!
>
> The physical causes of this perception are not necessarily the same as
the quality of the experience

Not only "not necessarily" but without a question. A quality of
experience is not a cause

> since the sensations are the message we get, what we are aware of via
our nervous systems

Yes, "messages." And messages aren't causes. Even if we react
"knee-jerk", on some level we interpreted them and always have the
option to ignore. An object doesn't "ignore" a cause. The retina can't
ignore the light.

> This the perception of wetness could conceivably be felt as something
> different by an entity with a different processing system

Yes. The wine taster tastes something different then I. This is an
intentional, not mechanical account based on a conscious agent doing
this or that...just as your researchers talk. Not a causal account.

> the stimuli are different from the sensations,

Yes a different language game, one of causes not reasons.

> There is no need to invoke...an idea of intention...

as long as you stick with mechanical stimuli. But once you do the above
research, intention is center stage. One finds out what the brain does
by the subject stating his intention

> We don't expect perceptions to be what they are either because
> we intend to have them in the way we have them.

There is a wealth of research on the impact of motivation on perception.
You are empirically wrong. Ordinarily, it appears that perception is
passive-receptive. That is misguided

> Why, if all the processes involved can be accounted for by a
description of certain physical events?

Then we would have no need for purposive, intentionality, human agency.
You researcher hasn't abandoned intentionality, in the strong sense, a
person living in a world. Maybe your dream of doing so can't be
realized.

> In vitalism, of course, some mysterious, inexplicable principle is
presumed
> to be at work that stands over and above the dynamics of ordinary
physical phenomena

Yes. Molecules just impact upon molecules. They don't sense anything.
When you add "a person" who senses the molecules as wet", you've
introduced a vitalism in a physical/biological accounts. Psychological
accounts are vitalistic because they are about a being that is vital

> I've stated my view that dualism is a mistake because it is not needed
> to account for minds in a physical world.

Yes, over and over. But you, just like your reseacher, adds back the
person. In fact, he starts with the persson. I guess he isn't phobic
about this sort of dualism.

And yet here you are saying my argument is of a piece with vitalism when
it is, in fact, in direct opposition to dualism, the explanation for
minds which parallels vitalism as an explanation for living things.

> I am in no way suggesting that water is wet because..we, as
perceivers,
> decide to feel wetness in the water rather than some other experience!

I know. That's what's odd You posit a perceiver but then leave him
nothing to do. In fact, you exclude him.

> wetness is, independent of any observer,

I think that's called metaphysical realism. First we describe the world
and then we insist that are descriptions are irrelevant but the actual
world still fits our description. How does one defend that?

> Is a psychological process a physical process?

If it is identical, then our mental processes follow the physical laws
of causation. Is that your thesis?

> It seems to me perfectly reasonable to say that brains are the source
(the cause) of minds

Show me where your researcher says anything like that.

> Against this view we have a supposition that minds are either
ultimately unknowable

1- The mystery. Yes, like that we know, there are limits. True for all
the disciplines. Nothing special about psychology.,

> they are part of the universe as a co-existent that is ontologically
independent

2- Spiritualism. Unacceptable, because mind is always found embodied in
this universe, thus far.

> This really is an endless debate, isn't it?

3- Yes. If all you can think of is #1 and #2 alternatives. I've been
trying to show you that contemporary psychology, and the above research,
represents neither. Read...

(1) a considerable amount of processing is possible without
consciousness, (2) attention is a prerequisite of consciousness, and (3)
consciousness is required for some specific cognitive tasks,

He starts with a person who is intentionally behaving, though not always
aware. He is studying how a person uses his brain, not how the brain
causes him to behave.

As I've said time and again, one can't start at the bottom, the
physical, and get to the top, the mind. And one must start at the
beginning, a person who lives in a world, and not before the beginning,
some physical entity that causes the person.

What hangs us up is the obvious. People come after matter. So to explain
people we should start with matter. But should we insist on perfect
continuity in explanation, i.e., all the types of explanation for matter
must exhaust the explanations for people. In a word, no emergence!

bruce

=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
<snip>

> --- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > What is a perception? It's the experience you have of some physical
> phenomenon or event, no?
>
> Tentatively, OK!
> >
> > The physical causes of this perception are not necessarily the same as
> the quality of the experience
>
> Not only "not necessarily" but without a question. A quality of
> experience is not a cause
>

Right, in this context it's the caused.

> > since the sensations are the message we get, what we are aware of via
> our nervous systems
>
> Yes, "messages." And messages aren't causes.

Right. Who said they were in this context?

> Even if we react
> "knee-jerk", on some level we interpreted them and always have the
> option to ignore.

I wouldn't agree with that. Do we always have the option to ignore severe pain or other kinds of distress? Or extreme pleasure?

> An object doesn't "ignore" a cause. The retina can't
> ignore the light.
>

Not relevant.

> > This the perception of wetness could conceivably be felt as something
> > different by an entity with a different processing system
>
> Yes. The wine taster tastes something different then I.

Well you don't know that. What you can surmise is that the taster can discern more elements in the taste than you can.

> This is an
> intentional, not mechanical account based on a conscious agent doing
> this or that...just as your researchers talk. Not a causal account.
>

Do we intend to be conscious and then become conscious? What sense of "intentional" have you in mind (since it seems to me you slip rather too easily between the two senses we've discussed)?

> > the stimuli are different from the sensations,
>
> Yes a different language game, one of causes not reasons.
>

Not just "a different language game". A different object of reference in the same language game in this case, too.

> > There is no need to invoke...an idea of intention...
>
> as long as you stick with mechanical stimuli. But once you do the above
> research, intention is center stage. One finds out what the brain does
> by the subject stating his intention
>

Brains produce minds which includes intentionality and purposiveness (having intentions). But brains don't do so purposively nor is an intentional consciousness required in order to get a brain-produced mind.

> > We don't expect perceptions to be what they are either because
> > we intend to have them in the way we have them.
>
> There is a wealth of research on the impact of motivation on perception.
> You are empirically wrong.

You are talking about something different. I did not say there are not circumstances in which our decisions and desires affect what we perceive. But note that "perceive" in this sense means what we are paying attention to. But, in fact, we perceive many things we are not immediately aware of, too, are not attending to!

>Ordinarily, it appears that perception is
> passive-receptive. That is misguided
>

Some of it is, some of it isn't, but at bottom it is passive-receptive because in the end, while you can alter what you are attending to, you cannot wish away what is there or wish a perception based on physical phenomena (not strictly in your mind) by will alone.

> > Why, if all the processes involved can be accounted for by a
> description of certain physical events?
>
> Then we would have no need for purposive, intentionality, human agency.

Why not? What have the latter to do with the occurrence of the former?

> You researcher hasn't abandoned intentionality, in the strong sense, a
> person living in a world. Maybe your dream of doing so can't be
> realized.
>

And maybe it can. Your suggestion that it can't partakes of too many confusions of terms here, from intentionality to causation to vitalism.

>
>
> > In vitalism, of course, some mysterious, inexplicable principle is
> presumed
> > to be at work that stands over and above the dynamics of ordinary
> physical phenomena
>
> Yes. Molecules just impact upon molecules. They don't sense anything.
> When you add "a person" who senses the molecules as wet", you've
> introduced a vitalism in a physical/biological accounts.

Do you want to say that there is no person to be found? Then what are we? Of coursse the issue isn't whether such things as we exist but how we do, how can subjectiveness occur in an objective world?

Here then is another of your confusions: You mix up the idea of a person being caused with a person causing and call it "vitalism".

> Psychological
> accounts are vitalistic because they are about a being that is vital
>

Vitalism in biology is as I have described it, the supposition that for any physical entity to have life it must be animated by something that is more than or at least different than the physical! That psychologists may suppose that having a person implies something vital doesn't imply the need for a vitalistic animating principle. Another confusion!

> > I've stated my view that dualism is a mistake because it is not needed
> > to account for minds in a physical world.
>
> Yes, over and over. But you, just like your reseacher, adds back the
> person.

Of course because the point is to explain how persons (subjective entities like ourselves) come to be in the physical world. But that doesn't mean we suppose that the person is a separate sort of thing, ontologically distinct, etc., etc. That, rather, is your own mistake, the one that makes you implicitly a dualist.

> In fact, he starts with the persson. I guess he isn't phobic
> about this sort of dualism.
>

It isn't dualism if one doesn't presume ontological separation. You say you don't, of course, but everything else you say smacks of it, leaving me to believe you just don't understand what it means to be dualist, or don't want to (because I've described it often enough).

<snip>

> > I am in no way suggesting that water is wet because..we, as
> perceivers,
> > decide to feel wetness in the water rather than some other experience!
>
> I know. That's what's odd You posit a perceiver but then leave him
> nothing to do. In fact, you exclude him.
>

A complete misunderstanding of everything I've said to date!

> > wetness is, independent of any observer,
>
> I think that's called metaphysical realism.

It's de facto realism because I make no metaphysical arguments for it (or against it). It is, on my view, not arguable but of a piece with Wittgenstein's hinge statement concept as found in On Certainty.

> First we describe the world
> and then we insist that are descriptions are irrelevant but the actual
> world still fits our description. How does one defend that?
>

One doesn't have to because one makes no arguments for this one way or another. The issue here is ONLY whether mind can be understood as a function of the physical in a way that is consistent with THAT picture. If it can, that is enough. The question is how is the notion of mind to be understood, not what is the nature of existence.

> > Is a psychological process a physical process?
>
> If it is identical, then our mental processes follow the physical laws
> of causation. Is that your thesis?
>

I've told you already the kind of identity I can agree to. If you're willing to accept that as identity then you can call me an identity theorist if you like. But this approach is not subject to the logical paradox issues surrounding assertions of logical identity (what Joe referred to as indiscernibility identity). So if your next move is to shout about a paradox, then we are not speaking about the same notion of identity.

>
>
>
> > It seems to me perfectly reasonable to say that brains are the source
> (the cause) of minds
>
> Show me where your researcher says anything like that.
>

Have you read the Dehaene talk? What do you think he is saying if not that? Do you want to consider his statements line by line then?

> > Against this view we have a supposition that minds are either
> ultimately unknowable
>
> 1- The mystery. Yes, like that we know, there are limits. True for all
> the disciplines. Nothing special about psychology.,
>

If brain researchers can discover what it is that brains do that result in consciousness there is no sense in crying "mystery" and, of course, that's what Dehaene and people like him are working on.

> > they are part of the universe as a co-existent that is ontologically
> independent
>
> 2- Spiritualism. Unacceptable, because mind is always found embodied in
> this universe, thus far.
>

It's too bad all your other claims rely on this implicitly then!

> > This really is an endless debate, isn't it?
>
> 3- Yes. If all you can think of is #1 and #2 alternatives. I've been
> trying to show you that contemporary psychology, and the above research,
> represents neither. Read...
>
> (1) a considerable amount of processing is possible without
> consciousness,

Right, this says the brain does more than consciousness alone but no one denies this. (Also note that Dehaene explicitly states that he is only speaking of so-called access consciousness, the kind we have when we are aware of what is going on. He explicitly grants there are other kinds: self-consciousness, reflexive consciousness, etc. The supposition that brains do things that happen at a sub-conscious or pre-conscious level is also perfectly consistent with the idea that brains produce consciousness and that consciousness occurs on a continuum of instances.

(2) attention is a prerequisite of consciousness,

The access consciousness he is explicitly talking about. Read the full talk!

and (3)
> consciousness is required for some specific cognitive tasks,
>
> He starts with a person who is intentionally behaving, though not always
> aware. He is studying how a person uses his brain, not how the brain
> causes him to behave.
>

Wrong, he is studying how the brain produces awareness, what functions of the brain are implicated in this production, and what purposes this kind of consciousness serves for the organism. (It's all in the talk.)

>
>
> As I've said time and again, one can't start at the bottom, the
> physical, and get to the top, the mind. And one must start at the
> beginning, a person who lives in a world, and not before the beginning,
> some physical entity that causes the person.
>

This isn't relevant to the idea of studying how brains produce consciousness because no one is proposing that we pull out a brain and take it apart to see what makes it tick.

> What hangs us up is the obvious. People come after matter. So to explain
> people we should start with matter. But should we insist on perfect
> continuity in explanation, i.e., all the types of explanation for matter
> must exhaust the explanations for people. In a word, no emergence!
>
> bruce
>

What do you mean by "emergence" here? Perhaps this is a lock we can open which will lead finally to some agreement, some common understanding?

SWM

=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

um, did I get this by mistake?

--- On Wed, 12/9/09, swmirsky@aol.com <swmirsky@aol.com> wrote:

> From: swmirsky@aol.com <swmirsky@aol.com>
> Subject: [Wittrs] Being a Pain in the Ass
> To: Wittrs-owner@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 2:17 AM
>
>
>
> Hey Sean, I didn't mean to be a pain in the
> ass over the past couple of days but you did accuse me of
> promulgating falsehoods. While I could always be wrong
> (as we all can), the suggestion that I was pushing
> falsehoods indicated that I was either doing so deliberately
> (thus lying) or out of mere ignorance (and thus was a bit of
> an ignoramus on the subject).
>
>
>  
>
>
> Now I will be the first to agree that I
> don't know or understand everything nor do I think I am
> any kind of expert on Wittgenstein. But what I wrote was not
> a mere falsehood (even if it should have turned out to be
> false, which I don't believe it has) because it was
> based on the testimony of a credible witness, one no
> less credible than your own. Thus it's not as if I could
> be justly accused of purveying blatant falsehoods or
> inaccurate information about Wittgenstein on the list, even
> if reasonable people might disagree over the validity of the
> competing claims.
>
>
>  
>
>
> Nevertheless, I didn't want to make it a test of
> wills or even keep arguing the issue with you but everytime
> you posted on this you added to or reinforced the standing
> accusations which, I believe, were unwarranted.
>
>
>  
>
>
> I do think that this debate was more a function of our
> missing one another's signals than of actual
> disagreement but I'll leave that for you to finally
> decide or not. As to the list, I shall try to pull back for
> a while in deference to your perhaps ruffled feathers. We
> have come too far building your list of Wittgenstein
> devotees and interested parties to fall out over such a
> silly debate now.
>
>
>  
>
>
> SWM
>
>
>  
>
>
> P.S. That God analogy you offered really threw me, you
> know. You don't really think of Wittgenstein in that
> way, do you? 
>
>
>

=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

argh! I don't know what the deal is but if I inadvertently posted something not meant for public consumption, I apologize. I thought "reply" would reply to the sender and that, since this wasn't on the Yahoo board, the sender was Stuart and not the list.

--- On Wed, 12/9/09, J DeMouy <jpdemouy@rocketmail.com> wrote:

> From: J DeMouy <jpdemouy@rocketmail.com>
> Subject: [Wittrs] Re: Being a Pain in the Ass
> To: wittrsamr@freelists.org
> Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 2:26 AM
> um, did I get this by mistake?
>
> --- On Wed, 12/9/09, swmirsky@aol.com
> <swmirsky@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
> > From: swmirsky@aol.com
> <swmirsky@aol.com>
> > Subject: [Wittrs] Being a Pain in the Ass
> > To: Wittrs-owner@yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 2:17 AM
> >
> >
> >
> > Hey Sean, I didn't mean to be a pain in the
> > ass over the past couple of days but you did accuse me
> of
> > promulgating falsehoods. While I could always be
> wrong
> > (as we all can), the suggestion that I was pushing
> > falsehoods indicated that I was either doing so
> deliberately
> > (thus lying) or out of mere ignorance (and thus was a
> bit of
> > an ignoramus on the subject).
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > Now I will be the first to agree that I
> > don't know or understand everything nor do I think I
> am
> > any kind of expert on Wittgenstein. But what I wrote
> was not
> > a mere falsehood (even if it should have turned out to
> be
> > false, which I don't believe it has) because it was
> > based on the testimony of a credible witness, one no
> > less credible than your own. Thus it's not as if I
> could
> > be justly accused of purveying blatant falsehoods or
> > inaccurate information about Wittgenstein on the list,
> even
> > if reasonable people might disagree over the validity
> of the
> > competing claims.
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > Nevertheless, I didn't want to make it a test of
> > wills or even keep arguing the issue with you but
> everytime
> > you posted on this you added to or reinforced the
> standing
> > accusations which, I believe, were unwarranted.
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > I do think that this debate was more a function of
> our
> > missing one another's signals than of actual
> > disagreement but I'll leave that for you to finally
> > decide or not. As to the list, I shall try to pull
> back for
> > a while in deference to your perhaps ruffled feathers.
> We
> > have come too far building your list of Wittgenstein
> > devotees and interested parties to fall out over such
> a
> > silly debate now.
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > SWM
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > P.S. That God analogy you offered really threw me,
> you
> > know. You don't really think of Wittgenstein in that
> > way, do you? 
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> =========================================
> Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
>
>

=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

Stuart:

You are most free and entitled to your opinions. If in any way you think I am upset over any exchange we have regarding intellectual matters, surely nothing could be further from the truth. A couple of quickies:

1. We still have a very odd bug in our system. Whenever you send a mail from Yahoo to "the group owner," it goes everywhere on creation. So further such mails should be addressed to me privately.

2. As to the substance of our positions, all I was really telling you was that you were misunderstanding Rhees for lack of understanding what Monk had quite clearly shown. I did not have time to reply to your posting of the Rhees paragraphs that could have been explained to you. Nothing I asserted was "my own belief." It was standard stuff from biography which I have no reason to believe is disputed anywhere. As to recharacterizing the matter as being "transitory after the transition" is some such thing, I have never said that the depth and significance of Wittgenstein's new views did not continue to be exposited even in the period of 30-39. My point was that these were more in the nature of clarifications and more comprehensive accounts of the new ideas. It's quite clear in Monk that these ideas are being bounced off his students before they show up in typescripts. So the period of the B&BB is very much in the heart of the new fires,
which started to be announced the the Fall term of 1930.

But there is no "personal issue" here. My only point was in making sure the account of Wittgenstein's work product lies in its proper historical context.  I'm sure we will have other things to disagree about. Don't ever worry about anything with me on this list when it comes to discussing intellectual subjects.

Now, if it comes to football -- I'd stay clear of the subject. I'm in serious pain this year. 

Regards.
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

... one more thing.

Here is what the God comment meant. It meant that when you have a Beethoven, there are no errors in the music. There is only the understanding of the level of the enjoyment. When someone functions at such a level higher than others, you cannot assess "correctness" before you first absorb the perspective. It is not by any means coincidence that Wittgenstein could not be understood either in person or in composition. It frustrated him to no end. Imagine what that must be like? (Think about it). The historical record is ripe with stories about the tiring effect that Wittgenstein had on surrounding minds. From Russell onward, minds would expire in his presence when they tried to engage or absorb him. Wittgenstein would prepare lectures based upon his original and intense thoughts. His students who saw this were both raised to abnormal levels (for temporary intervals) and likely to adopt negative mannerisms (showing the dominance of effect). And this
is Cambridge, mind you.

Anyone who reads something Wittgenstein writes and judges it with their own frame of reference is already lost. The only way to judge it is to first "see it." And this itself requires a communion of sorts. It requires a hell of a lot of effort.

But this group is precisely for those that want to "touch it" or, having done so, to talk about it -- or even, God forbid, continue "doing it." Wittgensteinians are intellectually tempestuous for reasons obvious to the acute level of insight needed to properly acess and follow the train of thought.  

None of Wittgenstein's ideas were ordinary. At least not, I imagine, since he was a child.

John Maynard Keynes: "Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5.15 train." (Said upon Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge)            
 
Regards.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

________________________________
From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@yahoo.com>
To: wittrsamr@freelists.org
Sent: Tue, December 8, 2009 9:35:17 PM
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: Being a Pain in the Ass

Stuart:

You are most free and entitled to your opinions. If in any way you think I am upset over any exchange we have regarding intellectual matters, surely nothing could be further from the truth. A couple of quickies:

1. We still have a very odd bug in our system. Whenever you send a mail from Yahoo to "the group owner," it goes everywhere on creation. So further such mails should be addressed to me privately.

2. As to the substance of our positions, all I was really telling you was that you were misunderstanding Rhees for lack of understanding what Monk had quite clearly shown. I did not have time to reply to your posting of the Rhees paragraphs that could have been explained to you. Nothing I asserted was "my own belief." It was standard stuff from biography which I have no reason to believe is disputed anywhere. As to recharacterizing the matter as being "transitory after the transition" is some such thing, I have never said that the depth and significance of Wittgenstein's new views did not continue to be exposited even in the period of 30-39. My point was that these were more in the nature of clarifications and more comprehensive accounts of the new ideas. It's quite clear in Monk that these ideas are being bounced off his students before they show up in typescripts. So the period of the B&BB is very much in the heart of the new fires,
which started to be announced the the Fall term of 1930.

But there is no "personal issue" here. My only point was in making sure the account of Wittgenstein's work product lies in its proper historical context.  I'm sure we will have other things to disagree about. Don't ever worry about anything with me on this list when it comes to discussing intellectual subjects.

Now, if it comes to football -- I'd stay clear of the subject. I'm in serious pain this year. 

Regards.
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org/
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html