[Wittrs] Re: Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist
- From: Bob Doyle <bobdoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:55:04 -0400
Dear Peter,
I like your translation very much.
Hap is another interesting word for chance. In Indo-European it connoted
luck, but especially good luck, thus Happy, and Mishap.
I find Wittgenstein understands possibility and contingency, which is
essential to understanding science today, and its irreducible probabilistic
nature. Before quantum mechanics, probability was epistemic - human
ignorance, since Heisenberg, chance is ontological and real, the stuff of
freedom from mathematical equations and causal chains.
For example,
*1.21 **Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything
else remain the same.*
I hope that you might take a brief look at my forthcoming book.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/books/Free_Will_Scandal.pdf
Pre-publication examination copies will be available, should you be
interested in using it in a class.
Cheers,
Bob
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Peter Caws <pcaws@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> "Case" in English lacks the obvious reference to contingency of German
> "Fall," which is why I've suggested (see my short piece "Tractatus 7.1" in
> Philosophy Now a few years ago - the Wittgenstein issue) that a better
> translation would be "The world is everything that happens to be the case."
>
> Peter Caws
> University Professor of Philosophy
> The George Washington University
> (202) 994-8685
> www.petercaws.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: JL Speranza <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
> Date: Monday, April 11, 2011 10:50 am
> Subject: Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist
> To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> > In a message dated 4/11/2011 1:48:46 A.M. ,
> > bobdoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> > Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist.
> > The world is everything that is the case.
> > In German, chance is Zufall. Can we see Wittgenstein pointing to the
> > utter
> > contingency of the physical (and even the verbal) world?
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Yes, since Sean is joining the discussion and he leads a
> > Wittgensteinian (I
> > won't use "Witters") that should help. I think perhaps Wittgenstein
> > (I
> > won't say "Witters") meant to say,
> >
> > "Die Welst is alles, was der Zufall ist" but changed his mind?
> >
> > One should check with Grice's colleague, D. F. Pears, who perhaps did
> > the
> > wrong thing (but then Moore was already writing in English) when he
> > decided
> > that Ogden's translation of Wittgenstein (I won't say "Witters") was
> > dated.
> > He provided a new one with McDowell. I haven't checked it, to see if
> > it
> > reads, 'the case', too.
> >
> > But I wouldn't think since 'case' is such a glorious word:
> >
> > --- from Etymology online:
> >
> > "case (1)
> > "state of affairs," early 13c., from O.Fr. cas "an event, happening,
> >
> > situation, quarrel, trial," from L. casus "a chance, occasion,
> > opportunity;
> > accident, mishap," lit. "a falling," from cas-, pp. stem of cadere
> > "to fall,
> > sink, settle down, decline, perish" (used widely: of the setting of
> > heavenly
> > bodies, the fall of Troy, suicides), from PIE base *kad- "to lay out,
> > fall
> > or make fall, yield, break up" (cf. Skt. sad- "to fall down," Armenian
> >
> > chacnum "to fall, become low," perhaps also M.Ir. casar "hail,
> > lightning"). The
> > notion being "that which falls" as "that which happens" (cf. befall).
> > Given
> > widespread extended and transferred senses in English in law,
> > medicine,
> > etc.; the grammatical sense was in Latin. In case "in the event" is
> > recorded
> > from mid-14c. Case history is from 1912, originally medical; case
> > study is
> > from 1933, originally legal."
> >
> > ----
> >
> > This should combine, in a pro-exegetical manner, with Grice, when he
> >
> > irritatingly writes,
> >
> > "Any attempt to remedy this situation" -- whatever -- "by resorting to
> > the
> > introduction of chance or causal indetermination [is that pleonastic?
> > what
> > sort of indetermination could there be which is not causal?] will
> > only
> > infuriate the scientist [some of them--not Doyle and the majority
> > nowadays]
> > without aiding the moral philosopher [if you find one!]."
> >
> > ----
> >
> > but 'chance' is already sort of introduced because 'case' is 'chance'
> > and
> > we do say things like "is it the case that Mary did it?"
> >
> > -----
> >
> > Perhaps we can elaborate on:
> >
> > --- stem distinctions:
> > 'casus' "from L. casus "a chance, occasion, opportunity; accident",
> > but it
> > seems 'casus' and 'chance' have slightly different implications.
> > Perhaps
> > due to the fact that 'casus' derives from the stem of "what has
> > fallen" while
> > 'chance' may derive from the stem (same root, though) of something
> > that
> > "_is_ falling" (the '-nt-') root. And there may be a distinction
> > there. If
> > something HAS fallen or did fall, there's nothing much we can do
> > about it, as
> > opposed to something yet falling -- we can move away from any
> > forthcoming
> > 'accident' as it were.
> >
> > ---- the redundancy of 'casus' constructions.
> >
> > "it is the case"
> > The world is everthing that is the case.
> >
> > ---- That is some GRAND statement, and if I were a cosmologist I would
> > have
> > it, inscribed in Greek, as my all-time motto.
> >
> > But in small-letter uses of 'case', as in:
> >
> > "It is the case that p"
> >
> > the implications may be different. When would we use, "it is the case
> >
> > that".
> >
> > It seems the usages correspond to what Grice called Strawson's "ditto"
> >
> > theory of truth (WoW:III)
> >
> > A: It is raining.
> > B: That's true!
> >
> > --
> >
> > Or more interestingly:
> >
> > A: It is raining.
> > B: That is _not_ the case.
> >
> > "It is not the case that it is raining".
> > "Oh yes. It is the case that it is raining".
> >
> > This may connect with what Grice discusses in "Actions and Events" re
> > this
> > Reichenbach operator:
> >
> > Reichenbach coined an operator -- sigma operator -- to be read:
> >
> > "it is the case that..." -- discussed by Grice, op. cit., p. 5ff --.
> >
> > Thus
> >
> > Caesar was murdered.
> >
> > becomes
> >
> > "It is the case that Caesar was murdered."
> >
> > ----
> >
> > Grice (and indeed Davidson) found Reichenbach to be slightly otiose
> > (if not
> > contradictory), for one can prove with it that:
> >
> > "any event which consists of [some case] also consists of [some other
> > case]
> > and vice versa; that is to say, any pair of randomly chosen events
> > are
> > identical." (Grice, p. 6).
> >
> > -----
> >
> > (Grice manages to retain the redundant operator, though, with a
> > license, or
> > rather a prohibition to use "the 'co-referentiality principle' after
> > the
> > 'logical equivalence principle' has been used". But other issues may
> > remain.
> > Or not.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > J. L. Speranza
> >
> > Messages to the list will be archived at
>
> Messages to the list will be archived at
> http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html
>
--
Bob Doyle
Information Philosopher - *"beyond logic and language."*
http://www.informationphilosopher.com
http://blog.i-phi.org
http://www.bobdoyleblog.com
rodoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Associate, Astronomy Department
Harvard University
77 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: +1 617-876-5678 Skype:bobdoyle
Messages to the list will be archived at
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html
Other related posts:
