[Wittrs] Re: [C] Re: Pictures, methods, Gettier, and other lingering topics
- From: John Phillip DeMouy <jpdemouy@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:04:26 -0400
At this point, I am only correcting blatant falsehoods about myself that
I haven't already addressed. (Falsehoods and misrepresentations that
are merely being repeated are being ignored.)
I am no proponent of PostModernism. On the contrary - though I'd give a
more nuanced and circumspect view if I were responding at length - I
loathe PoMo. I have to make great effort to treat Derrida fairly
because fundamentally, I regard him as a charlatan. (There are gems of
insight there but few and far between.)
I can only guess that because Shawyer (sp?) discusses different voices
and is an advocate of PoMo therapy (I am not even sure what precisely
that entails! If I were partial to any form of psychotherapy, it would
be Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is anything but PoMo in it's
emphasis on facts and objectivity.) and I speak of different voices
(Shawyer and I are not the only ones, by the way.), therefore I must be
an advocate of PoMo therapy. That would, of course, be affirming the
consequent - a fallacy.
In any event, I am not fan of PoMo or Derrida, so this attempt to get
some label on me and attack me for it fails miserably.
Lastly, I am not anonymous here. I use my real and full name. This is
the first (philosophy) list on which I have done so. What you're
alluding to about my behavior on "other lists" eludes me, but someone
drew my attention awhile back to a blogger you'd suggested might be me.
I am not he.
On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 23:44 -0700, Sean Wilson wrote:
> J:
> Can't say I find much of value here. It's a poor assessment of the issues.
> You really have difficulty understanding things that I say. And you throw up
> a lot of sand about nothing. But here is my sense of it:
>
>
> 1. PICTURES
>
> I've never disagreed with this: "... a picturerepresent[s] a thinker's
> thoughts only if the thinker acknowledge[s] it asthe right picture." My point
> is that getting thinkers to see that their claims arise from pictures is the
> first step to being insightful. Once one is aware (can experience) that this
> is how "reasoning" occurs, one can move forward to see how people react to
> alternate pictures of account. In fact, if one becomes adept at this, how he
> or she regards others who don't "get it" may be quite revealing.
>
>
> But here's the central problem. What you are doing is defending postmodern
> therapy, and wanting Wittgenstein to be the George Washington of that. I
> really have no problem with you having these commitments. Indeed, all of your
> efforts have been nothing but a clinical-pedagogical (ideological?) reading
> of various Wittgensteinian passages. It's the POMO in you, of course, that
> doesn't like someone saying that Wittgenstein is an "elitist" project. That
> perspective comes from philosophers of meaning, who don't counsel people
> clinically, but who deal with claims and propositions and what-not. You won't
> get much support, I imagine, from Ray Monk and many, many others on the idea
> of trying to link Wittgenstein with, e.g., Derrida.
>
> I know I'm against that for sure:
> http://seanwilson.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&thU5&start=0&S>4ab0a1ce18a26680848d2a396bc1e4
> .
>
> The fact of the matter is that Wittgenstein's whole life was spent trying to
> say which beliefs were better than others. The latter Wittgenstein is no less
> arrogant than early Wittgenstein in this respect; he just uses different
> means. The Tractatus told people what beliefs were better than others. And PI
> surely continues the goal of that story. The big mistake of people who read
> Wittgenstein is not to realize that he never actually changed directions. He
> didn't do a 180 turn. He simply morphed from one set of tools into a much
> more powerful set of tools -- the way, for example, thecaterpillar morphs
> into the butterfly.
>
>
> And it's interesting how touchy you are on this. Whenever this turf of yours
> feels invaded, you turn into this tornado sort of thing. Out comes the
> rhetoric and so forth. I had a private mail from a member of PMTH who said
> that the host there reacted the same way as you do to those who refused to
> see Wittgenstein in the light of a pomo-therapist.
>
> My sense is that pomos are no different than analytics in one respect: they
> each react with venom when the opposite epistemological picture they desire
> is presented to them.
>
> 2. PICTURING BEING JUST A PICTURE
>
>
> Here's the point I don't think you are getting: picturing is a BEHAVIOR. But
> it's deeper than, say, playing football (its not 'behavior" in that sense).
> It's something the form of life does to make sense of things. And so, if one
> says, "I realize that I am picturing" -- one treat this as one does an
> epiphany. You would tell the person, "excellent!." But if another were to say
> of the epiphany, "yes, but that itself just a picture," there would be a
> problem. The problem is whether the person who says this is denying that the
> phenom is taking place in the first instance. If the person doesn't deny
> this, there is nothing to worry about.
>
> Notice the grammar of these words: thought, revelation, epiphany. Or, talking
> "off the top of my head." I want to suggest that just as "thought" can
> implicate each of these senses, the word "picture" can share aspects of this
> grammar. Hence, senses of "pictures" exist. So, the idea of a person
> discovering ("seeing") the picturing process might be a kind of
> revelation-picture. Saying that a revelation-picture is a "picture" is like
> saying an epiphany is just a thought. It's only true in a sense.
>
> BTW, I think you asked for proof of this. You, of course, do realize that
> "getting sense" is more in the neighborhood of having an aptitude for
> language, right? (All that can be done here is to continue working with you).
>
> 3. MEANING AND MIND
>
>
> When Wittgenstein began emphasizing "pictures," it was an investigation into
> how meaning occurs intellectually. This has nothing to do with suggesting
> Wittgenstein was involved in empirical psychology. It only suggested that he
> was unearthing something deep about the process of meaning. This would cause
> him to reflect upon what happens, intellectually, when sentences are
> asserted. None of this goes into private languages or talk of folk psychology.
>
> 4. THESIS & THEORY
>
> This is a recurring theme for you. I think it is a mistake to take the
> bombastic position that Wittgenstein is against all grand insights or
> revelations. Or that he would be against the noticing of a general dynamic of
> something. It suggests that Wittgenstein had pudding for a brain, which we
> all know to be the lie of lies. Meaning-is-use is a grand insight. It's a
> game changer. So is family resemblance. So is aspect seeing. So is picturing.
>
> I think where you are confused on this thesis thing is that you have an
> ahistoric understanding of the issue. You've got to do two things: place
> yourself in the heart of 1930s positivistic intellectual culture and
> analyticity in particular. Then, you have to catch Wittgenstein's sense of
> "theory" and "thesis." Once this is done, two things happen. You see
> Wittgenstein as being against the idea that philosophy should try to
> imitatemathematicsor science. And that he he rejected the formalism of
> analytic philosophy that had beenoccurringin his age (and making him sick).
> As I said before, the best way to read Wittgenstein here is to say he put
> forth a kind if END-theory. His sense of the word "thesis" is not against
> this idea. And the ultimate point is that what prevails for Wittgenstein is a
> skill or craft -- a technique -- rather than a calculation or an exercise in
> logic.
>
> Nothing I have said about the general dynamic of insight is against this
> idea. In fact, it supports it.
>
> Also, you seem to think that the right way to "get Wittgenstein" is to pull
> out a quote and read it into your program. Actually, there is another way.
> What you would do is catch all the ideas & stuff them into your head, so that
> they exist, without conflict or torment. Wittgenstein was very clear
> throughout all of his life that people only half understood his ideas. It
> would bother him immensely. The way to do this would be never to critique or
> reject an idea of his. It would be to understand him as a person, and then
> try to put all of the ideas into your head without conflict or torment to
> each element. If this was the method, it would come to resemble the way that
> Psalms might be understood.
>
> Anyway, my point is this: I'm unconvinced with how you go about trying to
> make your case. Your objections to "thesis," your failure to catch sense,
> your ignorance or rejection of biography, and your POMO-counselling program
> simply do the most justice to Wittgenstein's life or ideas. It might fit
> under the label of Wittgenstein-inspired POMO-counselors. But it's not
> working as a picture of "the truth."
>
>
> 5. EMPIRICAL HYPOTHESIS
>
> You write, "Moreover, even if he had made such a claim as,"Everyone's thought
> is based on pictures," (which he did not say, whichwould have been an
> empirical hypothesis and therefore contrary to hisprofessed methods ... )"
>
>
> You seem to think here that Wittgenstein is against making statements that
> could be empirically investigated. What he's against is philosophizing about
> them as a set of premises: "look and see!" But that doesn't mean that he
> doesn't, himself, form thoughts that have consequences for empiricists.
> Indeed, there are many empirical pursuits that can claim Wittgenstein's
> observations as an influence. See cognitive linguistics and family
> resemblance (Steven Pinker).
>
> Imagine: "He couldn't have said language had family resemblance. That would
> involve an empirical claim. People actually talking and that happening. Gosh.
> That's just a thing for POMO-counselling. He said he didn't do that, here's
> the passage I misunderstand."
>
> (Doesn't work, does it?)
>
> 6. CULTURE AND VALUE
>
> I don't know what to do on this.You quote something of mine and simply
> can't"get it."I assume you just are just being silly on purpose. I never had
> any issue with Culture and Value. I love that as much as I would his letters
> and other typescripts-manuscripts (Stuart are you even around to catch this
> one?).
>
> The only work of Wittgenstein that I came close to "qualifying" was the back
> portion of OC which doesn't have the status of being a manuscript or a
> typescript -- came straight out of the notebooks. Given what we know, those
> remarks would have been revised. That's all I've ever said, skeptical wise.
>
> 7. TRANSITIONAL WITTGENSTEIN & FORMALISM
>
> The Monk view would have the "middle period" being the verificationistphase
> of 29 and in work called Philosophical Remarks. The point of the epiphany is,
> for Monk, the birth of the new Wittgenstein.Like I say, I'm on board with
> that. That's why he begins tackling problems of formalism with formalistic
> means. That's why the book with Waismann eventually gets ditched ("his views
> have changed too much."). Nothing wrong with starting the the spring when the
> weather breaks.
>
> On this hedge, I really have no problem: " ...does not entail that Monk
> advocates reading everything post1930/1931 as ... there still being many
> ideas intransition prior to 1934." Here's the point: a person can transition
> from 39 to 45. He can certainly transition from 32 to 39. The issue isn't
> whether he "transitions." The issue is which of the transitions support prior
> work and which break from it -- and to what extent. Monk is right that from
> 30 onward, Wittgenstein's thought can be seen as going in a direction that is
> not "Tractarian," or at least notconventionallyso. Wittgenstein himself would
> see the years from 30 onward as chasing down a second sort of project. It is
> very consistent with this account, therefore, that he would begin using
> formality to show issues with formalism -- and then would eventually dump
> that (around 39 I think).
>
> But I'm comfy with treating the epiphany for what it was.
>
> 8. HAUGHTINESS
>
> I can't agree with the idea thatarroganceis always a vice. There's a whole
> set of things here you haven't considered. You are offering, in essence, the
> defense of grade-school manners as a universal. Or, you are giving us the
> level-shame thing using a cultural construction (Mayberry). You're also
> jumping to conclusions about "imitating" -- you don't have the foggiest idea
> about what you are talking about. Really, what you are doing is picturing
> very, very poorly. This is probably a really good example of where you need
> intervention in the picture you have, despite the fact that you don't feel
> that you do. I mean, you're out in left field here. You know absolutely
> nothing about who you are talking with. You know, there are studies about how
> email conversations mislead because you have to provide the voicing, you have
> to imagine the person, no visual cues, yada yada. This is about as bar-stool
> as anything could be.
>
> 9. CLINICS
>
> You write: "Moreover, it is not merely about that, but rather adilemma:
> either one must be willing to use traditional philosophicalmethods (akin to
> those used by the second "voice"), usingcounterexamples, contrary theses,
> skeptical arguments, and so forth, inorder first to unsettle a thinker in
> their dogmatism, or one mustrecognize that certain thinkers simply will not
> be receptive, becausetheir views don't (at least as yet) cause them any
> distress."
>
> My sense is that this is clinical ideology. It may not be an "ideology"
> aboutpsychotherapy -- it's only a pedagogy then --but it is once you import
> this as a vehicle for understanding what Wittgensteinianism is. This reminds
> me of what those behaviorists do. I can think of inordinate times when in the
> context of philosophy oracademiawhere people "not in distress," yet need to
> be shown something they cannot see.
>
> 10. GETTIER, etc.
>
> The point about Gettier had nothing to do with who he studied with or
> anything you mentioned. It's another sand storm. The point is that the whole
> "Gettier problem" isn't a problem to a Wittgensteinian. The fact that you
> think he's nifty because he formally showed that a formal definition of
> knowledge is a "problem" isn't the point. This is because his maneuver did
> nothing but carry forth and support an irrelevant conversation that went on
> for years (and is still going on). In fact, that thing will never end -- it's
> that much of a fun toy to analytic philosophy. How to solve the Gettier
> problem? Goodness. Once you graduate to Wittgensteinian, you see there is
> nothing to solve at all.
>
>
> You write, "... while there were manymisunderstandings then as now, there
> were also some superb Wittgensteinscholars writing at that time." I don't
> disagree. But having access to all of the other writings did cause evolution
> about the idea of what Wittgenstein believed.
>
> Also, I can't agree that one who perpetuates an irrelevantconversationwith
> counter-formality (Gettier) is doing anything like Wittgensein was doing to
> "game." Wittgenstein was tearing down the ediface of logic with family
> resemblance and meaning is use. Gettier was wholeheartedly supporting it.
>
> Not sure what you are doing with Justified, True Belief. You write, " ... one
> risks instead sending them down falsepaths, clinging even more tenaciously to
> traditional approaches, ashappened with the subsequent literature surrounding
> "justified truebelief".Gettier gave birth to a specific kind of problem for
> JTB. Epistemology professors who teach JTB pull out Gettier as a problem for
> the students to solve. In fact, there is a cottage industry of sorts that
> makes up all sorts of "Gettier-type" problems for JTB. As a philosophy
> student in my junior year, I had claimed to solve the problem.
>
> (Karate with sticks and pads)
>
>
> 11. THE GROUP.
>
> I don't "ban" people. I put them on moderation. If the problem that gave rise
> to moderation disappears in the incoming messages, I forward them.
>
> I'm not "disappointed with group participation" as you might think. I never
> wanted a big group with lots of posts. I did want more "horses." The perfect
> group would have been about 12 Wittgensteinian scholars and some grad
> students.It was never an open "let's debate philosophy" group. It was always
> perspectival -- like that PMTH thing.
>
> 12. PERSONAL STUFF
>
> You know, I have always found that the dynamic of being anonymous doesn't
> help on discussion lists when the person converses with someone who isn't
> anonymous. (It actually may be worse when both are anonymous). But I think
> this anonymous-tornado-rage thing doesn't really make for a good
> intellectualenvironment. You've shown over and over again -- and on other
> lists -- that all you do is "bite" whenever you don't get your way on certain
> ideas.
>
> This is a very poor trait, especially for one interested in therapy. I know
> I'm not much interested in talking with you anymore, because, frankly, I can
> see no benefit from it. You've got such a fortress built, that anyone who
> goes near it only gets the POMO-therapy-under-attack treatment.
>
> Since I know who you are now, and your agenda, I think it's best just to have
> us avoid conversing any further. At least for a while.
>
> Regards and thanks.
>
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
> Assistant Professor
> Wright State University
> Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
> SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/authorY6860
> Wittgenstein Discussion:http://seanwilson.org/wiki/doku.php?id=wittrs
>
>
>
>
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- » [Wittrs] Re: [C] Re: Pictures, methods, Gettier, and other lingering topics - John Phillip DeMouy
