[lit-ideas] Re: FAO Phil/Here we go again
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:09:38 +0700
Donal McEvoy wrote:
"Also my claim about the TLP assuming that a proposition has sense in
virtue of its elements and their relations is, at the least, a 'kind
of textual analysis'."
No, it isn't. It is a claim about TLP. The textual analysis bit
would be when you provide the relevant texts and then show how those
texts support your claim about TLP.
Donal:
"Showing a contradiction, or "some form of contradiction", is the
lifeblood of much critical thought"
This is a straw man. The lifeblood of critical thinking is the
pursuit of truth or better understanding. Resolving contradictions is
certainly part of that pursuit, but far from being essential. I don't
know what issue or truth Donal is hoping to better understand. If
Donal disagrees with me, perhaps he might further the cause of
critical thought by expanding on his own argument. Without expanding
on his own thoughts, but continuing to write much, I am left with the
suspicion that critical thought is not Donal's primary concern.
Donal:
"The issue is whether 'relations' alone determine sense, as Phil
clearly enough claimed."
Yes, that is still my claim. Wittgenstein is a good Kantian in this
sense. For Wittgenstein, sense is produced by the correspondence
between relations of elements within a proposition and relations
between things. We cannot know things in themselves and elements in
propositions only mark where things stand. So, it is relations all
the way down. What Donal does not do is show how Wittgenstein says
something different
Donal:
"In the second claim Phil is seen to say (and I quote) that 'elements
do not contribute to the sense of the picture'."
Correct. They provide no content. They function as markers that are
intended to grab hold on to things, like dots on a map. The sense
lies in their relations to each other on the map and then how those
relations correspond to the way things are in the world. Like a map,
a proposition produces a sense that is either true or false. The true
or false bit lies in whether the proposition maps on to things
accurately.
Perhaps Donal is fixated on elements. Again, it isn't clear what
Donal thinks so I am guessing as to the nature of his objection.
Elements are the stuff of proposition, but for Wittgenstein they are
signs of things. Those things are what allow our proposition to grab
hold of the world and produce propositions that are either true or
false. However, we cannot know those things, in themselves, only
their relations to each other. Donal may disagree with Wittgenstein,
but this epistemological approach is pretty standard Kantian stuff.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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