[C] [Wittrs] Re: Re: Wittgenstein and Theories
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:59:29 -0800
Greetings Sean and others --
I am tracking this thread and do appreciate reading #109 again just now.
Those kick off quotes were great too. Much to learn from this list.
What comes to me are all his remarks about what he thought "theorizing"
might amount to (i.e. the philosophy of the bad old days): language idling,
language going on vacation.
If we wanna get more colorful, he thought a lot of philosophical
expostulating amounted to mouthing off and/or goofing off in a
non-productive manner.
The stronger theorists would be right no matter what, because of the private
language aspect of being internally consistent (more some other time), but
then this wouldn't matter, simply because "being right" isn't necessarily
advancing philosophy in a productive direction.
We're not all converging to the "one right thing" i.e. it's not a
gladiatorial sport where we're all waiting for the last great theory to
triumph and forever carry the day. Maybe some of us are. Be that as it
may, here's Wittgenstein showing how to escape that vista altogether (the
battlefield of warring theories) and go with something more expressive of
healing (of resolving -- less about casting out new "isms", less "king of
the hill").
So in looking to shut the door on theorizing ("we'd all agree to the theses"
-- a show stopper in a way), he's putting pressure on philosophy to prove
itself useful in a different way, in the delicate manner he describes in
#109, a fight against getting tripped up in our own grammatical
circumlocutions. It's a liberation philosophy in tone (freeing the fly from
the fly bottle), a promise of more cures to come.
This turning on theorizing as a principal activity earns Wittgenstein a
deserved reputation for striking off in a new direction. Having the
Tractatus to his name already, the praises of Russell and others, made this
second pass all the more striking. He had a lot of inertia behind him. He
made a big splash.
Some philosophers dislike how his contribution rocks their boats. He brings
an engineer's sensibility to the equations that values good work. He
appreciates ordinary language so much because it's getting stuff done,
getting slabs moved around. There's an implied ethic, a walk behind his
talk, which many of us here admire quite a lot.
Kirby
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