Re: [Wittrs] Kirby's Comment on Analytic Philosophy
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2011 13:30:02 -0700
Thinking more about that book Sean mentioned,
about Wittgenstein in the movies; I often wonder
what would have happened to analytic philosophy
had LW more access to today's television.
We'd have to fast forward him through much of the
Cold War, to where it's ubiquitous and convoluted.
One reason for this fantasy is a pleasantly analytic
one: if we take the framed 16:9 or 4:3 rectangle
that is the TV screen and analyze its content as
"language" or "linguistic" (not neglecting the
audio channel obviously), then we appear to
breath a whole new life into the "picture theory
of meaning".
That's not the detour I'd take though.
Mainly I'd be wanting to disrupt this terrible, dare
I say brain-damaging, fascination with "the proposition"
which many analysts cling to. Subtract Wittgenstein,
and you descend into this nonsense miasma about
propositions being all there are in language, stuff
the Wittgensteinians abandoned to the ash heap
of history some decades back (and good riddance).
Having the TV screen step in and say "I will now
be replacing the book as your role model
communications medium, your philosophy hence
forth should refer to me and my language" would
likely draw mostly snarls and derisive ridicule
from these puerile analysts, but at least they'd
see the contrast: language as propositions in
a book (like the Tractatus) versus language in
a framed window with colorful patterns, including
type, fonts, symbols, diagrams, plus audio.
Clearly I'm talking less about your simple TV of
the 1950s and more about your interactive GUI
("desktop" metaphor has been prevalent), with
some old movies in a rectangle. Words float in
rectangular or other shaped frames. You may
have some rotating cube of desktops if on the
cutting edge, other polyhedrons in the pipeline.
These are language games par excellance. Lots
here to investigate, that's for sure.
But to what extent has analytic philosophy made
any attempt to move its focus to the cell-silicon
interface, the keyboard/mouse/LCD of the personal
workspace?
In some nooks and crannies on this spherical campus,
it feels more like a musty old patriarchy wherein
quarrelsome individuals are still writing papers as
if to please Bertrand Russell and his contemporaries.
For this purpose, it is important not to make too
many cultural references to linguistic innovations
since that time, such as mouse-over icons, screen
widgets of any kind. Such chatter is verboten.
Philosophy has a look and feel. Lots of pipe smoking
and wainscoting? Or should we go by smell
(Nietzsche played up the nose for detecting
rotting in Denmark etc.).
Once you bring Google Earth into your philosophy
class on HDTV (or Google Mars), you blow all
that talk of "propositions" out of the water and
no longer have that nice neat logical schema
based on insular premises and fragile definitions.
Analytic philosophy that's pre-computer literate
is brittle, like an old man with a cane who will
break all his bones if he falls, so he moves very
slowly. That's your paradigm Anglophone
archetype I'm afraid. Old and wise is a good
thing, but where's the wise?
Analytic philosophy isn't just showing its age,
it's somewhat dank and cadaverous.
In some Other Tomorrow, maybe Marshall McLuhan
was taken more seriously, not pilloried for being
Catholic or whatever it was (I'm not up on all the
relevant lore). Philosophers became more like
diplomats, because of their fluency with multi-
media. They were if assistance in computer
science and could help increase the effectiveness
of human-to-human communications across the
board, all because of their curious discipline.
Could still happen I suppose, but I'm certainly not
looking to moribund philo departments to cook
it up (with some exceptions?). Too late. Gotta
already know TV and GUI stuff (semiotics,
ergonomics...). Gotta hit the ground running.
Katie Couric is far closer to being a philosopher
than anyone in tweeds and tie who says
"language consists entirely of propositions" in
some lecture hall someplace. The latter would
be a movie character without a camera crew --
or maybe some students are recording to their
iStuff -- some stereotype of a philosopher from
the 1900s, when you could still get away with
that racket. Tuitions have gotten too high for
such play acting, and it's all on Youtube for free
anyway (like 'Good Will Hunting' and 'Conception'
both have those professors). It's back to the
drawing board for a lot of Ivory Towerites I'm
thinking, if they want to compete for sponsors
in the HD televised Global U.
Kirby
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