[C] [Wittrs] Re: Reading Wittgenstein, was Wittgenstein on Religious Belief
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 10:45:52 -0800
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 11:08 PM, J DeMouy <jpdemouy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<< SNIP >>
> It is helpful to distinguish between what I'll call "truisms" (those familiar
> and simple truths with which no one would argue and which could not
> constitute "theses", i.e. which are not contentious, but of which we might
> "assemble reminders", as per PI 128 and surrounding remarks) and what some
> call "hinges" (those beliefs with which _On_Certainty_ is concerned).
>
> The verbal expression of a "hinge" may have the appearance of a "truism" but
> it may also be nonsense outside of very special circumstances. A "truism" is
> not nonsense. A "truism" may seem beyond question but "your mileage may
> vary", as they say.
>
I'm finding these remarks interesting (more so than the rebuttal of
Martin's specific argument, as I've simply not participated in the
exegesis of that essay (didn't read it closely, only skimmed)).
The word "truism" comes to us with lots of connotations, not the least
of which is that a truism is somehow "true". There's also the flavor
of "vacuous and empty" at least in some language games i.e. one might
accuse someone of "indulging in truisms" where a legitimate response
to a truism is something like "so what?" or "you haven't said anything
factual" ("tautologies" tend to be dismissed in the same way). Tthis
is the kind of archeology of ordinary language that I consider
consistent with the PI's investigatory approach.
> For example, if I point out that the game of poker incorporates an element of
> randomness and an element of concealment, while the game of chess involves
> neither, those are "truisms". But they are not "hinges". Doubting such
> things would not need to throw much else into doubt. They are not a
> "bedrock".
>
Philosophy has this embedded distinction between "empirical
statement", which in Tractarian terms is a picture of the facts, a
proposition with truth value (based on its matching or not matching
the facts), whereas a "tautology" (which is akin to a truism) is a way
of "making sense" that's neither supported nor refuted by "the facts
on the ground" as it were (world = ground). Note that I say "akin"
and by your example above a truism might be more an empirical
statement (verifiable, could be wrong) that we all agree with because
it is empirically true (not just because it makes sense to say in some
grammatical sense).
In ordinary literate discourse, people will say "that's just an empty
tautology" sometimes. The typical example from the literature: "all
bachelors are unmarried" (simply a reinforcement of definitions, like
saying "all balls are round" -- then we could argue whether "round"
means "spherical" as clearly the NFL style of football is more
elongated and oblate, but still "round" we might argue).
> PI 128 is not making a logical point, a la OC, about what it makes sense to
> question or claim to know. It is making a methodological recommendation
> about the sorts of assertions that have a place in the practice of (his style
> of) philosophy.
>
I tend to agree, yet I think in allowing theses to remain
uncontentious or not a point of argument, he's inevitably bringing
"theses" into closer proximity with both "truism" and "tautology" and
this logical distinction between empirical and non-empirical does
enter, at least through the back door.
Here I would link to his "justifications (or reasons) come to an end"
meme. If it makes no sense to contradict something, then to assert
"belief" in that something also borders on nonsense. A "hinge" is
less a believed true fact than a pivot point for a grammatical
machinery. Shared "doing" more than shared "seeing" is a basis for a
"form of life" in the OC sense.
To this last point I would link Karen Armstrong's observations of
Protestantism versus some other religious traditions, in that the
former puts a premium on shared beliefs, agreements in theses,
recitation of shared dogmas, whereas many other religions (according
to Karen) are much more about sharing daily disciplines and habits --
somewhat irrespective of adhering to shared statements of faith.
Indeed, when it comes to beliefs, some traditions encourage strong
debate and contention as a way to keep any such formal apparatus self
adapting and updating i.e. in every age we must "rehash" or "hash out"
through a process of argument based in whatever rules (I'm thinking of
the rabbinical tradition, of which Jesus was very much a part).
As a practicing Quaker with on-line journals (a part of my practice),
I find Karen's arguments useful for putting some distance between
Quakerism and mainstream Protestantism. The former is less anchored
in "credos" or "beliefs" and so is more like Zen in some respects.
> The example "truisms" provides a nice segue to another point. I may assemble
> various truisms like those above in hopes that you would arrive at the
> conclusion, "So, despite what I thought, maybe there is no one element shared
> by all and only those activities we call 'games'!" and perhaps even, "So,
> many of the words we use may not have all their uses united by a set of
> necessary and sufficient conditions!"
>
> This process of assembling reminders might be compared to an argument.
> Nevertheless, I might not insist on the conclusion. And in fact, no such
> assembling of reminders would actually prove that someone really clever
> couldn't somehow come up with a "perfect" definition of "game".
>
I find "assembling reminders" a useful trope and find many authors
using that as a form a building a theory or network of associations.
What I think of as a "mindset" is akin to Sean's notion of "cue cards"
in that we're used to developing "chains of cues" i.e. trains of
thought, where the segues are not in the nature of "iron clad logical
switches" (as if we had no choice in the matter) but in the nature of
reminders, mnemonic conventions, habits.
Now that we have the Web, it's easy to describe mindsets in terms of
hyperlinks and networks of web pages i.e. you can visualize a mindset
as a convexity inside of which a thinking "bounces around" without
escaping (until maybe the bubble bursts i.e. mindsets come with a
"time to live" or "half-life" -- sometimes relatively short next to
those "for the ages").
To practice philosophy in a Wittgensteinian manner requires developing
some new habits of thought and Wittgenstein's writing is
self-conscious of this didactic responsibility i.e. the author
consciously designs interconnecting pathways linking "rule following"
to "language games", "meaning" to "seeing according to an
interpretation" and so forth.
Setting up this infrastructure, designing a "track system" involves
developing concepts through use, more than through plunking down some
formal definition and saying "there, that's the meaning". In other
words, it's through his usage of the term "language game" that we come
to appreciate its sense, not through some simple enumeration of its
possible meanings, as one might find in a dictionary.
>
> JPDeMouy
>
>
Kirby
--
>>> from mars import math
http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math
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