[Wittrs] Re: Meaning, Nonsense and Verifiability (for Walter)
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:41:00 -0700
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 9:28 AM, SWM <swmirsky@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The verifiability principle failed its own test because it posited itself as
> the sole criterion and then could not itself pass. On the other hand, as
> explanations, the notions of language games and meaning as use only have to
> be shown to be good explanations of how standards of meaningfulness occur.
> That is, they have to provide sufficient explanatory power to adequately
> account for other aspects of the phenomenon they are directed at, language.
>
> There is nothing Carnapian (in the sense of logical positivism) to be seen in
> any of this.
>
> SWM
>
Thanks for your essay.
I've been watching the volleys back and forth too.
Your analysis of the role of mysticism is interesting as you impute
that it reaches high tide in W's writings exactly where the Logical
Positivists thought they were finally putting it to rest, in the
Tractatus (a last nail in the coffin?).
There's some irony here, and I think the folklore has come to absorb
that irony i.e. the joke is always on the positivists these days,
whereas W himself seems to escape to a next chapter (he went on around
the bend, or the "linguistic turn" as Rorty called it).
Logicomix reflects this folk tale. Carnap is mentioned on pg 340,
along with Karl Menger, one of the philosophers I often cite.
We know W was influenced by Schopenhauer and that the name Tractatus
Logico Philosophicus pays indirect homage to Spinoza. These were not
proto positivists. W contemporaneously overlaps but is in a different
lineage, is a bird of a different feather.
In my telling of the story, gestalt psychology (the duckrabbit one of
its icons) was just getting going around then as well, in conjunction
with anthropology. The need to "see in new ways" was simply the
practical need of the field worker, trying to get into the head of
some tribe in the Amazon jungle or whatever.
One might feel caught up in the spirit of a village raid, and not
realize all that was going on until later. You take your notes and
digest "what happened" when you get back to your native environment
and have some time to relax and unwind. It's not that you got
"enlightened" in the jungle, or rather, you were, but on a next
assignment, plan to get "enlightened" again, in a whole different way.
It's an unending process.
Clearly the verification principle is too brittle to be of much aid in
anthropology. People believe the darnedest things, and if you go on
the basis of trying to believe what appears to be unbelievable
nonsense, you'll never get anywhere.
The Tractatus armed one as a debater maybe (its intimidation quotient
seemed high, thanks in part to the cryptic notation, then much in
vogue), and prepared one for heated arguments with the natives over
the nature of God in the Heavens or whatever the hell. I think of
poor Aguirre (aka Ozymandius), great conqueror of this same jungle.
He utters his private language of imperial domination, but what sense
does it make to the monkey people? See notes
below.
So when you get to Philosophical Investigations Part 2, you're really
looking at an investigation into the centrality of aspect shifts to
meaning, and how usage patterns may operationally trigger them.
You may go from here directly into the sciences or mathematics, as all
of them have this requirement. Staring at an MRI or catscan in a
darkened room, one trained to read such things will spot all kinds of
tell tale signs, whereas the neophyte just sees a lot of whisps,
perhaps a skeletal outline, some splashes of color.
"Seeing according to an interpretation" is the bread and butter of:
(a) reading / interpreting any language, such as Chinese or English and
(b) reading / interpreting any kind of data recording, such as an MRI
or other medical record.
Lab skills have everything to do with responding not just to color,
but even to smell (techniques for 'wafting' so you don't over do it).
Music recordings have everything to do with listening according to an
interpretation. "Did you catch those allusions?" If one's ear is
"unschooled" as they say, then no, how could you? Some of the meaning
gets lost.
There's no mysticism here, just flexibility and an ability to remain
trainable, ready for a next challenge. To study philosophy is to stay
limber enough to new meanings. Training in W's later philo helps
lengthen one's career in anthro, as now one has a less brittle way of
approaching the whole "meaning" thing. Connecting the dots, getting
into a mind set, is not just an armchair activity (per tag line:
"math is an outdoor sport" -- trying to get people off their duffs
around math learning as well).
You may have to do the homework, which may mean climbing over a few
mountains, Zarathustra style, and not just in one's head.
Quakers (Friends) diverge from mainstream Protestants in
de-emphasizing credo (there's no recitation to speak of) and focusing
on practice (which could be seen as a tilt towards pragmatism if you
like) -- some even say they're not Christian (and based on where
Christianity's been going, I can't say I blame them).
Karen "Battle for God" Armstrong is an influence on my thinking here,
as she frequently spells out the difference between religions which
focus on creed, credo (belief, the contents of one's thinking) and
religions that have everything to do with lifestyle (dress code, skill
set, diet, social role in a community).
"I'll believe it if I can get it on television without leaving my
chair" is the way many beer 'n peanut Protestants approach their
religion, as passive entertainment (an anthropological observation, a
remark on a form of life, a grammar (lifestyle)).
In sum, W's later philosophy turns out to have more applications in
multi-cultural settings than anything Vienna-positivist (or even
postmodernist) and is therefore more likely to get studied in schools
for diplomacy (such as the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs? --
should be, if ain't). One learns to *not* reflexively think one knows
what the other means, simply because one hears (or reads) this or that
apparently familiar word (e.g. "nuclear").
Many sleepwalk through life like that guy in 'Being There' (book by
Jerzey Kosinksi, later the movie with Peter Sellers), always quite
certain they're able to follow the action, never quite getting how
much is really going on around them.
Yes, that sleepwalker image is a lot like each of us for sure (a moral
of that tale), but then there is such a thing as "growing awareness"
(a direction), and such growth has its practical applications -- which
is why "being a philosopher" need not be a complete waste of time,
once you get away from those tiresome old organ grinders and their
crufty / ritualized "time honored" debates.
As for "explaining" anything, that's more a job for science than
philosophy. Philosophy is more about setting goals, performing a
steering function. Science and engineering need to be steered,
shaped, prioritized (ranked, scheduled, funded). That's where ethics
comes in, and judgment. Pretty much *any* game of life depends on
"agreements in judgment" if any work is to get done (is what W came
to), while "explanations" come to an end.
"Philosophers make the best television" might be our motto, with "TV"
just a stand-in for whatever media. That's not the current stereotype
I realize, but then most practicing philosophers don't put
"philosopher" as their title on their business cards.
Kirby
Notes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQYKDrOs_j8&feature=related (Aguirre, a
positivist, but not a pragmatist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Kosinski (re Being There)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnCZxLvYXI8 (Church Lady: raw material
for a "TV anthro" course (Systems Science?))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer ("...influenced many
well-known thinkers including Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner,
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Sigmund
Freud, Otto Rank, Carl Gustav Jung, Leo Tolstoy, and Jorge Luis
Borges")
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2009/08/quakers-101.html (embedded videos)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Menger (mentioned in Logicomix as
member of Vienna Circle, wrote about 'geometry of lumps' which I've
picked up on in Martian Math)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology (links to on School of
Berlin, School of Bretano -- note Freud again, as well as Heidegger in
the branches)
For study circle:
Reading:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21174398/Freakery-Cultural-Spectacles-of-the-Extraordinary-Body
...looks to be important for our Portland study circle, where
'Wittgenstein' the movie (available at Movie Madness) is discussed in
more detail -- especially the Martian (a character), and the "inner
philosopher as circus freak" motif (resonates with "geek" (icons of
alienation)).
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "walto" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> <snip>
> >
>
> > I stand by everything I've said. To wit:
> >
> > Your remark that discourses on freedom of the will is nonsense is indeed
> > Carnapian . . .
>
> <snip>
>
> > W
> >
>
>
>
>
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