[lit-ideas] Re: Ogden's Logico-Philosophicus

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 12:48:10 +0000 (GMT)




________________________________
 From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>

>>
Wittgenstein told Ogden

'For although TLP isn't _ideal_ still it has something like the right meaning, 
wheras 'Philosophical logic' is wrong. In fact I don't know what it means! 
There is no such thing as philosophical logic. (Unless one says that as a whole 
the book is nonsense the title might as well be nonsense to).'

[Monk's biography, p 206]>>

But repeatining this quotation does not explain the difference between 
"Philosophical logic" [which "is wrong", according to W] and "TLP" [which "has 
something like the right meaning"]. We can play on this merry-go-round of 
terminology and get nowhere - what we need is an explanation of the difference.

Likewise, JLS offers this:

>And the question then concerns what "logico-philosophical" may mean. One  
possibility would be:

logical-cum-philosophical (treatise)

i.e. NOT as having 'logical' qualifying 'philosophy', but as a treatise  
which deals with LOGIC _and_ philosophy.>

To which again the question arises: what is the difference between a work that 
concerns "logic and philosophy" and a work in "philosophical logic"? Etc.

Here is a suggestion about the W quotation: what W is getting at is not that 
there is a difference between "philosophical logic" and the field denoted by a 
"logico-philosophicus" but that there is difference between these terms 
simpliciter and a title that is a "Treatise" or Tractatus on them. For his 
"Treatise" suggests we cannot say anything about these fields, though we can 
show or exhibit what is "the truth" as to them: and so to refer to 
"Philosophical Logic" simpliciter "is wrong" as it wrongly suggests we can say 
something about "Philosophical logic" - whereas, because of the "limits of 
language", we can only offer a treatise on that subject-matter that shows the 
character of that subject-matter but without saying anything about it. (And 
this suggestion may be corroborated by the parenthetical remark that ends the 
quotation re "nonsense" - for this question of "nonsense" is to be understood 
in terms of the distinction between showing and saying.)

Just a suggestion mind, but one that takes W's point as being in a different 
direction to distinguishing "philosophical logic" from whatever is denoted by a 
"logico-philosophicus" etc. If this direction is right, some here are barking 
up the wrong tree.

For those who want to take W in that other direction, the question remains for 
them to explain the distinction - repeating the quotation from W amounts to no 
explanation at all. 

Donal
Sometimes fond of explanations
London

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