[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:29:08 -0500
Damn it all, all this our culture stinks philosophy. Come, Papiols, let's
to music! I have no life save when I dance with damsels both fair and
brown, her whom wealth melts and her whom want betrays. Let us go then,
you and I, and throw roses riotously to the throng, singing songs of
mackerel crowded seas, the young in one another's arms, let us not succumb
to the self-pitying throes of old age, questioning the primrose path of
dalliance we once tread because all existence called us to it. What Whitman
said: * I'd prefer to turn and live with animal.-- they know they are
there, what's to question?* I pray to all the gods that I not become an
old man in a dried month being lectured to by my family and friends.
Popeye had it right -- "I am what I am." Sounds pretty damn god-claiming
to me. And if Popeye can do it, so the hell can I. This universe is
mine.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
> no
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> *To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Sent:* Thursday, 22 March 2012, 22:29
> *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online
>
> Donal wrote
>
>
> ------------------------------
> ****
> >I have already outlined what might be a counter-example to the view that
> the 'said/shown' distinction is central to PI: (i) an example of a 'rule'
> whose sense can be stated without anything further needing to be shown for
> it to have that sense. I will here give other possible counter-examples:
> (ii) W saying that the said/shown distinction does not feature in PI (iii)
> W saying something like 'Everything involved in the sense of language can
> be said'.
>
> I suggest that it is the search for such counter-examples that will prove
> that they are the real 'will-o-the-wisp' here. So far none have been
> produced; and dismissing the idea that the 'shown/said' distinction
> features in PI as looking for a 'will-o-the-wisp' is itself just a kind of
> will-o-the-wisp as far as serious argument or explanation goes.>
>
>
> >Well, this comes close to argument by bluster.
>
> We'll perhaps see how close...
>
>
> > It's claimed that there is a clear (if hard to find) distinction between
> saying and showing in the *Investigations*, a distinction
> identical or quite similar—or at least analogous—to that in the *Tractatus
> *.>
>
> These are not quite my claims.
>
> So, for example, the apparent contradiction of my claiming that there is a
> "clear (if hard to find) distinction" does not attach to my claims.
>
> To be clear, my claims are as follows:-
>
> 1. A. There is a distinction between saying and showing that is 'shown' in
> the TLP.
> B. This is clear - or clear enough.
> C. If one is tempted to say the distinction is 'drawn' in the TLP, it
> should be noted that it is part of W's POV that such a distinction cannot
> be 'drawn' in the very fundamental sense that to 'draw' the distinction
> would be to try to express what cannot be expressed, or to 'say' what
> cannot be 'said' but which can only be shown. Hence it would be potentially
> misleading to say to the distinction is 'drawn' in the TLP; and so it is
> better to express the position as at 1.A.
> D. This distinction is absolutely central to the TLP - without it we
> miss what is most fundamental and important in W's POV in TLP.
>
> 2. A.There is a distinction between saying and showing that is 'shown' in
> PI.
> B. This is perhaps less clear than in the case of such a distinction
> 'shown' in TLP. How much less clear we might leave open, but it is a much
> lesser matter than whether or not the distinction is there 'shown' and used.
> C. If one is tempted to ask where the distinction is 'drawn' in the
> PI, it should be noted that it is part of W's POV that such a distinction
> cannot be 'drawn' in the very fundamental sense that to 'draw' the
> distinction would be to try to express what cannot be expressed, or to
> 'say' what cannot be 'said' but which can only be shown. Hence it would be
> potentially misleading to infer that there is no such distinction in PI
> because it is not explicitly 'drawn' in PI; and so it is better to express
> the position as at 2.A.
> D. This distinction is absolutely central to PI - without it we miss
> what is most fundamental and important in W's POV in PI.
>
> 3. There are clear differences between the distinction 'shown' in the TLP
> and that in the PI:-
> A. In the TLP the distinction between saying and showing is
> inextricably linked with a 'doctrine of sense and nonsense' according to
> which only the propositions of "natural science" say anything with sense,
> whereas PI abandons any such doctrine.
> B. This doctrine in the TLP means that 'what is shown' there is
> nonsense: a consequence W explicitly recognises at the end of TLP; but
> because PI abandons this 'doctrine of sense and nonsense' PI does not have
> to treat 'what can only be shown' as nonsense.
>
> 4. There is a key piece of thinking that links W of the TLP and the PI and
> his two different views of 'what can be said and what can only be shown':-
> what gives 'what is said' its sense is never 'said' in 'what is said'
> - what gives 'what is said' its sense cannot be said but can only be shown.
>
> These are my claims.
>
> I have also offered textual support from PI to show how there W conveys
> that what gives 'what is said' its sense is never 'said' in 'what is
> said' - what gives 'what is said' its sense cannot be said but can only be
> shown. For example, in text given, W points out that the sense of a
> 'rule' cannot be 'said' because to try to give the sense of a rule by a
> stated 'interpretation' would only give rise to a need for a furtherstated
> 'interpretation' to give the sense of
> that stated 'interpretation', and so on - and that the way out of this
> kind of "logical circle" (or infinite regress) is to see that there is a
> way of grasping a rule "that is not an interpretation" but which is
> "exhibited" [or shown] in what we call 'obeying the rule' and 'going
> against it' in actual cases.
>
> Robert seems to think the following tells against the claims above:
>
>
> >The difficulty is that there's very little agreement as to what this
> distinction amounts to there;
> e.g. does what can only be shown include logical form, the mystical, and
> the aesthetic—none of them, all of them, only one or two, and which one or
> two? And so on. There's no agreement about the nature and scope of the
> distinction in the *Tractatus*; therefore, to try to match *the* *
> Tractatus* account of saying and showing to something in the *
> Investigations* is indeed to follow a will-o'-the-wisp. What *is* it in
> the former that's also found in the *Investigations*?>
>
> But this does not, in my view, tell against my claims above. First, there
> is agreement that the distinction features, indeed centrally, in the TLP:
> therefore, that there may be dispute or "very little agreement as to what
> this distinction amounts to there" is no argument that the distinction does
> not in fact feature there, indeed centrally.
>
> As this "little agreement as to what this distinction amounts to there" is
> therefore no argument that the distinction does not in fact feature in the
> TLP, indeed centrally, it is obvious that it provides even less of an
> argument that the distinction is not in fact in PI.
>
> Dare I suggest that thinking the question "What *is* it in the former
> that's also found in the *Investigations*?" (reasonable as it might seem)
> therefore in fact comes very close to argument by bluster? It certainly
> passes over, in silence as it were, many of the points made in my recent
> posts.
>
> Donal
> Plymouth
>
>
>
>
>
>
Other related posts:
