[Wittrs] Re: The Tractarian vs. the Author of the Philosophical Investigations
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:46:57 -0000
Wittgenstein wrote:
> 6.421
>
> It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed.
>
> Ethics is transcendental.
>
> (Ethics and æsthetics are one.)
Stuart (> from here on out)) wrote:
> I cannot imagine the later Wittgenstein asserting claims about the
transcendental. What does the word mean?
Since W. is borrowing heavily from Schop., and Schop. was borrowing terminology
from Kant, and Kant distinguished between the transcendent and transcendentAL,
what is meant by transcendental for W. is most likely "pertaining to the mind's
categories." By "expressed," I'm guessing is meant some proposition that
denotes, whether using atomic signifiers alone or some more complex way of
signifying. This interpretation allows for the type of meaningful talk (of
ethics, aesthetics, how crumpled shirts may make one feel) we'll find in the
Investigations, where discussion of how people use words is the subject matter
of philosophy, if it has one.
> It suggests a word or phrase that
somehow points at something that cannot be actually pointed at. This is wholly
inconsistent with the later Wittgensteinian philosophy where words are seen to
do a great many things, including but not limited to pointing, and where words
that do point are seen to have no purpose and no meaning if they are not
actually able to pick out
what they are pointing at.
If you take in my reading above, you'll see that his earlier view was not that
inconsistent with his later view--he was having trouble with his earlier view
when entertaining it. Then he thought the earlier TLP at the end of the day
elucidatory. Then he thought the TLP nonsense because its subject matter was
about sense (and reference) when in ordinary language you have sense and
reference without having to talk about sense and reference. Or something like
that..
> Although Wittgenstein continues to concern himself
with language and meaning and so forth, he has done a 180 degree turn away from
the metaphysical musings that informed his work in the Tractatus.
Actually, the TLP was also about how metaphysical musings don't amount to much.
But he stole this from Schop. See Schop.'s "Epiphilosophy" found in the
second volume of his _World as Will and Representation_. And an excellent
companion to that is his second volume chapter: "On Man's Need for
Metaphysics."
Put my way, the TLP was about talking about how some talkings about don't
amount to much. The Investigations just went at ways of talking regardless.
> I don't honestly see how we can study and appreciate Wittgenstein without
recognizing the radical shift and its implications for the earlier work.
The radical shift was simply not to talk about (in the Investigations) how well
he'd dismissed metaphysics in the Tractatus, having done it in a way that
couldn't be said but only shown. And not whistled either, according to
Ramsey's joke.
It's not much of a radical shift to go from there to discussing ordinary
language issues.
The thing is that W., if he were honest, would have publically acknowledged a
debt to Schopenhauer. Note also that Schop. is constantly pulling examples of
early writing and commenting on word use, among other things.
Now just so we're clear, I don't agree with everything Schop. has said. And
you can see that I found a fair bit of the TLP retarded as good philosophy.
(by the way, it is very bad to think that modern philosophy is reproducing the
mistakes the TLP was warning against--very bad, because doing so makes the
mistake the TLP warned against, i.e., saying something about everything in
general, like "All philosophy is bad. Bad, bad, bad")
For example, Schop. wanted to characterize the thing in itself negatively as
that which admitted no plurality. I abbreviate "thing in itself" in the
singular as TIT, especially as it lends itself to a joke.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, wanted to characterize things as they are in
themselves as having original plurality, the property of being finite in
number, and he thought this was just TITS--or that a philosophy of TITS should
seem tits, meaning cool in this context, but not as cool as a witch's one teet.
Ironically, or so it would appear, Schop. chased more TITS than Nietzsche. But
really, Schop. made the point that chasing just TIT (read: transcendent
metaphysics) didn't amount to much--and that's one., just one, of the sense
that Nietzsche had of him in "Schopenhauer as Educator." So W. might have
acknowledged Niet. too, since it was Niet. who preached against a complete
infinity in the form of necessary original plurality--but that was because of
what we couldn't think (others will claim that arguments from conceivability
are notorious nonstarters). And note that the inconceivability claim of
Searle's vis a vis strong AI is about the inconceivability of functional
explanation doing the kind of work good scientific explanation ought.
So the ref's are Schop.'s WWR, vol.2; Niet.'s "Schop. as Educator."
Cheers,
Budd
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