Re: [Wittrs] Searle at Simply Wittgenstein
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 08:53:54 -0700
On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 9:35 PM, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ... here is Searle on Wittgenstein in what appears to be an exclusive
> interview for Simply Wittgenstein:
> http://simplycharly.com/wittgenstein/john_searle_interview.php
>
Thanks for the link.
The story is pretty consistent in dividing the world into Analytics
versus Continentals.
Searle likes claiming the former tribe as his own, and pokes at the
latter for their
writing being unclear (too Heideggerian no doubt -- I empathize).
Wittgenstein is
claimed as an Analytic but as fairly safe and defanged, more a saint than a
subversive (saints having been safely dealt with many times, including by
Anglican Anglophones).
There's no story about Asian philosophy infusing through California and adding
to the syllabus, stealing a lot of the limelight from Continental
fare, and therefore
from the Analytics, who thrive on those "differences".
Where Searle and I tend to agree most is about Leibnitz, could be the smartest
guy who ever lived (which isn't to say the smartest ever).
Probably the best place to branch off is through Frege though, as here's what
the Analytics rally around: Logic, ala propositional calculus,
Frege's invention.
Along one prong, that led to Russell-Whitehead's Principia and an outcome
Frege himself considered untenable.
Along another prong (or tine, if a fork), we come to Leibnitz again, and his
dream of machine-driven logic.
What's the relationship between these two branches? Both contain something
called logic, with computer languages infused with booleans, query strategies,
algorithms, bootup sequences, and running on logic boards with embedded
chips built from logic gates.
The other stuff went nowhere very interesting and is where Analytic Philosophy
terminates, in a kind of logic of no bread and butter value except to its
practitioners, who use it to distinguish themselves from Continentals (but
not Asians).
As a recruiter of future philosophers, I champion the geek subcultures and
their hard work keeping companies going, governments, families, by means
of computer software and hardware.
I recognize Richard Stallman as one of our greats, not just for his ethics
around keeping power sharing free and open among engineering cults
(Church of Emacs etc.), but for his hammering away on GCC, one of
the great tools of our day.
Philosophers should appreciate GCC (GNU C Compiler) and what
it has done for the world, as well as GNU more generally.
Wittgenstein's philo helps us with this idea of namespaces. We're also
given a limbering up, get a new kind of flexibility from his disciplines
(like yoga?), that makes it easier to stop clinging to old security
blankets such as Euclidean geometry (not that it's at risk in any way;
security blankets tend to outlive their owners).
This later talk about "four tetrahedroned" versus "four cubed" is a good
example of the kind of basic gestalt flipper stuff you would find in
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Philosophy mixed
with ethnography is better able to break free of cultural vortexes
that keep maths mired, including its propagation in formal schooling.
Thinking is more about acting than we might have presumed. LW's
joining a hospital staff shows his greater powers of thought and
imagination. This was also a peer group. He was making his
statement.
A big question is whether Analytics want to defect in droves, jump
ship as it were, and join the hacker-geek pirates. Painting Wittgenstein
as more subversive than saintly is a recruiting face in that case. As
a subversive, he made the balance of Analytic Philosophy (the sinking
ship part) pretty much untenable. Plus we can say he was really a
Continental in disguise, taking more like a 'Jew of Linz' tack, though
not connecting the dots in quite the same way Cornish does (less
of a role for Special Branch maybe -- lets see what le Carré thinks).
Continentals and Asians, in the meantime, have a hot thing going,
pretty steamy, as they don't need to wait for Anglophones to get in
the groove. If defecting Analytics join the party, so much the better,
as they'll have their Wittgenstein. But LW wrote in German too, and
there's nothing to stop a latter day Vienna Circle type from embracing
those language game concepts, the tilt towards ethnography, and
finding interesting work as an anthropologist of cyber cultures like
Amber Case, or serving diplomatic functions in other ways. The
focus on language, ala the linguistic turn, was not uncongenial to
the Continentals.
The first prong, which went nowhere all that special, held out the
promise of AI perhaps (ala Hal in Arthur C. Clarke's '2001 Space
Odyssey'). But today's Watson is far more a "prong two" device
than a creature of Frege. Dr. Vannevar Bush wrote 'As We May Think'
of the MEMEX, prefiguring search engines before any "Internet",
while Grace Hopper pushed ideas of COBOL type compiled
languages that could accept humanly contrived syntax we could
think in, flow in. Programs are scripts. They control behaviors.
Like in theater. Like television. Watson, part of a marketing
campaign, played the role of The Turk on the TV game show
Jeopardy, the "artificial man" in command of much trivium. He
was the Wolfram Alpha of the hoi polloi, the comic book superman
robot. At last, the 21st century: so like the 19th.
Anyway, these are some cool thinkers to look at, if wanting
more background in the Analytic Philosophy of tomorrow (if we
choose to keep one). Wittgenstein and his engineers (not
all of them boys praise Allah). Friendly Asians. Come join us.
Kirby
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