[lit-ideas] Re: "A Proposition Is A Fact" (Tractatus)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:08:46 EDT
In a message dated 4/22/2009 7:51:54 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
You cannot have "certain knowledge" and be wrong (by definition of
"certain knowledge"). But there is no "certain knowledge" only conjectural
knowledge. So, in the sense in which we have actual "knowledge", we can "know
and
be wrong".
Popper is not alone in this view (which can be traced to Xenophanes).
---
He's the one who would bury himself in horse manure? No. Not Popper,
Xenophanes, I mean.
Provide the Greek.
Yes, languages are important.
I would be surprised if Witters or Poppers knew Greek or Latin, so
possibly Xenophanes escaped them.
Nobody in his right mind would have attempted anything as _dry_ as the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in the classical tradition of philosophy. But
the Germans, they _think_ they are superior, and they are not. Russell was a
case. He should have stayed with numbers. But there he felt his role in
his boring story of Western philosophy was to be the mecenas of this obscure
Austrian engineer. And the rest is history.
In Oxford they could never tolerate Wittgenstein. "Who is this man, and
why should we spending any consideration on him. He cannot even write either
Latin or English. Off with him."
In Cambridge, the tradition has always been physics (e.g the observatory),
so philosophy never had a 'bite' with them. Imagine my discontent if my
father would say, "You are going to legacy, to King's College, where your
granddad and myself went". Bollocks. I would possibly commit suicide.
Legacy in Oxford is important but not so. Balliol for example, has legacy
with Indian brahmin, but the ordinary English type ignores them. Jesus
(College) has legacy with Welsh methodists, but the English type ignores them.
So that leaves us Corpus Christi, Merton, and St. John's, the three
colleges associated with Grice.
"proposition", "fact" "Can the words be so different that they make sense
in German but not in English?". Of course.
First, neither 'proposition' nor 'fact' _are_ English. The Anglo-Saxons
never used them. When people bring to my attention (if these people are
WASPs) a term of Latin origin, I say, 'look for the Anglo-Saxon counterpart'.
If
they can't, good riddance.
I would not think that the Anglo-Saxons needed a word for 'proposition'
and 'fact' as they needed one for 'axe', 'plunder' and 'rape'.
In Latinate countries it is different, because some of these people never
had a CHOICE. "fact" gives 'fait' as in fait accompli in French, or 'fatto'
or 'hecho' in Spanish. "C'est un fait que ...", It is a fact that I ...
makes sense. Note that 'fatto' is not used much in Italian. They realise it's
an otiose construction.
Indeed, in Argentina, loaded with Italians as it is, 'fatto' means a
'messy fact'. "En que fatto te has metido": Now that's some pretty mess you
got
yourself into". It's usually associated with Italian maffia. "Esta tiene
un fatto con el cafisho ese" (This whore has some messy business with that
dangerous pimp). Etc. "Fact" has no _clean_ uses.
Proposition is a scholar silly, nice, fine point. It's a noun out of
nowhere, thus otiose.
"My mother counts her chicken"
Is that a fact? If she finishes counting her chicken, is it still a fact?
Or it _was_ a fact? You see, the grammar is otiose and misleading.
Austin knew about this, and was fascinated by
a man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.
--- deed is the word. Deed is the Anglo-Saxon word. "Words and Deeds" was
the title of the lecture he gave. Word is wrong, but 'deed' is okay. Oddly,
when my tutor translated that into Argentinian, it came published as "Como
hacer cosas con palabras" and then "Palabras y acciones". But of course
"Palabras y hechos" would have been better in that 'hecho' is, well, a fact
-- something done.
Cheers,
JL Speranza
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