[C] [Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and Theories
- From: "J" <jpdemouy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:05:41 -0000
JRS,
First, I should preface what follows with the caveat that, having read some of
what Floyd and Putnam have written on the topic of Wittgenstein and Godel, I
still cannot speak confidently of understanding the issues involved. It's also
been awhile and I don't have those texts handy.
My understanding is that Wittgenstein's concerns turn on two points. First
would be the issue of "provable in a system" vs. "true in a system" and second
would be the relationship between the formalism and prose and whether we could
simply reject an interpretation of the Godel numbers according to which a
contradiction is derived. But I can't emphasize enough the previous caveats
regarding my reading.
If you might elaborate on the connection you see between these issues and the
_Blue_Book_ quotation, perhaps that would help my understanding.
Regarding that quotation, I read it slightly differently. Admittedly, there is
some ambiguity, but when I read, "it isn't", I don't take that to say, "it
isn't interesting". Rather, "it isn't MORE interesting." Which is not to say
that it might not be EQUALLY interesting or ALMOST as interesting.
The quest for elegance treats the emphasis on differences as much LESS
interesting, the identification of common features as much MORE interesting.
In rejecting such an aim (for his purposes), he needn't deny that common
features might be QUITE interesting, only reject the idea that attention to
differences and to partial definitions cannot be quite interesting as well.
JPDeMouy
(Elegance is not what we are trying
> for.) For why
> > should what finite and transfinite numbers have in
> common be
> > more interesting to us than what distinguishes them?
> Or rather, I
> > should not have said "why should it be more
> > interesting to us?"--it isn't; and this characterizes
> our way of
> > thinking.
>
> - and the above says
> why Wittgenstein would just not find incompleteness
> results
> interesting, at least not necessarily so, without further
> argumentation - that is perhaps not utterly unknown, but
> seldom
> really elaborated.
>
> (Others argue for the "elegance" of a concise and
> universal
> principle, but that's exactly what Wittgenstein dismisses
> here)
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