[Wittrs] Re: Where to from here?
- From: "SWM" <swmaerske@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:46:05 -0000
Okay, perhaps I misunderstood you then. It wouldn't be the first time. The only
thing I'd say then is that, if I am misunderstanding I do not seem to be alone,
which suggests a communication difficulty at the least. I guess that's why I
generally want to steer clear of these types of discussions (guessing what
others really have in mind and so forth). If it's not clear to me then it's
better to stand aside, I think. -- SWM
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@...> wrote:
>
> (re: Stuart)
> ... yes, Stuart. Thanks for the confirmation on CV.
>
> Of course, on the rest, I can't agree with your caricature. The only point I
> have ever made that is close to your gross misunderstanding is completely
> uncontroversial: how one comes to understand what another person asserts can
> be a function of how adept they are at that sort of brain trait. (It is the
> same with mathematics or music or reading comprehension or whatever). And
> "getting Wittgenstein" is something that will test how a person handles that.
> It's very hard to "get Wittgenstein." Cf., for example, Karl Marx. It's not
> hard to "get Marx," though he was a terrible writer. For Wittgenstein, your
> orientation needs reworked.
>
> My point is always about whether the ball is going into the net. It's never
> been my position with Walter or anyone that "they had no intellectual
> standing" and that I "stood on superior insight alone." That's a caricature
> that one would make only when they were threatened by the view and/or
> misunderstood it. Indeed, that would be about as poor of a catch of my
> position as I can imagine. Rather, what I said to Walter was that he had
> participated poorly in an exchange that had several misunderstood points. It
> has never been my position that people on the Analytic list are "dolts" or
> that they aren't intelligent people. Goodness. Mathematicians, artists,
> musicians, auto-mechanics, craftsmen, administrators, etc., can all be
> "intelligent people." Any issue with Analytic that I have ever had, aside
> from the poor discussion environment they had fostered in the past, is that
> the framework they work within is frequently impoverished, and that the fault
> lies
> in not seeing certain Wittgensteinian insights very well. All of this is
> true, no matter whether saying it is efficacious.
>
> Take a discussion about these topics into Analytic and see what you get:
> meaning is use, family resemblance, conditions of assertability, grammar,
> pictures, imponderable evidence, connoisseur judgment, and false problems.
> What you'll get is the idea that "sociology isn't meat" (see Walter), and a
> reporting of what other analytic philosophers have said about the issue
> (journalism). You'll also get a lot of "I really don't understand W, but if
> you can point to something maybe we can talk about it." "We can't say because
> W isn't clear." Or (my favorite): "This is where Wittgenstein's argument is
> refuted ...." (as if the matter were really like that at all).
>
> Look, here is where I am. I've never held Wittgensteinism to be a
> "philosophy." Rather, I hold it to be a graduation of sorts. There are a
> certain set of skills that I have learned through accessing Wittgenstein. A
> certain way to see the life of an idea. You cannot hold this perspective and
> not be changed by it. You cannot hold it without certain walls falling. And
> for those who remain with the walls they do, one has two simple choices: to
> let them remain where they are, or to try to show them. Being within the
> walls does not make one "not intelligent." It doesn't even make them less
> worthy than those without the walls. It means only that one sees what he or
> she does.
>
> Wittgensteinians are discriminated against everywhere. And the reason why is
> that they are not allowed to talk about things they see after they have been
> transformed. They get level-shamed. They get told, in essence, to put their
> walls back up.
>
> I simply cannot agree with your caricature.
>
>
>
> 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
>
Other related posts:
