[lit-ideas] Re: Sounds right to me
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:43:04 -0330
Quoting Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Perhaps related.
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14wwln-Wallace-t.html?_r=3&ref=magazine
> I liked the following:
> He then ventured modestly that his own analysis of the problem “seems to
> warrant the following conclusion of our own: if Taylor and the fatalists want
> to force upon us a metaphysical conclusion, they must do metaphysics, not
> semantics. And this seems entirely appropriate.”
>
> O.K.
Quite right, I would say. A parallel claim is that arguments against the cogency
of transcendental arguments and conclusions often are themselves replete with
transcendental claims. Richard Rorty was charged, convicted and fined
repeatedly for this offense - to the point where he realized the best he could
do was "change the subject" and not talk about what is or is not possible or
necessary with such things as knowledge, understanding, language, vocabularies,
etc..
Walter O
MUN
>
>
> --- On Mon, 12/15/08, wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Sounds right to me
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, wokshevs@xxxxxx
> Cc: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Robert Paul" <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> Date: Monday, December 15, 2008, 9:22 PM
>
> I just had a thought. (I know, beginner's luck.)
>
> Consider the claim:
>
> "I can refer to a sensation by the use of 'S' only if I can check
> my use of
> 'S'."
>
> Is there a claim here as to a necessary condition for the possibility of
> something? Or is this simply an empirical, and hence, contingent, matter?
>
> Consider now the following claim:
>
> "Philosophical problems cannot be solved via appeal to experience."
>
> Compare with:
>
> "Odd coincidence: every time we've tried to solve a philosophical
> problem via
> appeal to experience, we've failed. We must re-double our efforts
> here."
>
> One last one:
>
> "If one tried to advance *theses* in philosophy, it would never be
> possible to
> debate them, because everyone would agree to them."
>
> What kind of a claim is one that denies the very possibility of debate
> regarding
> a philosophical thesis? Could it be one that W is presupposing a necessary
> condition of debate that is not met by philosophical "theses."?
>
> Walter O.
> MUN
>
>
>
> Quoting wokshevs@xxxxxx:
>
> > There seem to be two different questions here:
> >
> > 1. What did W himself actually believe regarding the status of language
> > games
> > for the possibility of meaning and knowledge?
> >
> > 2. What does his account of language games itself presuppose regarding the
> > possibility of meaning and knowledge?
> >
> > We distinguish between the 2 questions because it is possible that W did
> not
> > himnself understand what his account of language games actually entails.
> >
> > Perhaps a question to begin with here is: "What possibilities for
> meaning
> > and
> > knowledge are there independent of the construct of language games?"
> Assume
> > that human beings did not/ could not engage in language games, what would
> > the
> > "meaning" of a word or a statement itself mean? I believe W
> recognized the
> > force of this question.
> >
> > The remarks garnered together by Malcom and Von Wright as "On
> certainty" are
> > surely a testament to transcendental philosophy. The fundamental and
> > pervasive
> > claim running throughout those remarks is that if you doubted the validity
> > of
> > "hinge propositions," you would not be able to coherently doubt
> at all, nor
> > would you be able to make any knowledge-claims. W claimed Moore "knew
> > nothing,"
> > despite his hand waving, precisely because Moore occluded the necessity
> and
> > universality of such certainties for genuine knowledge-claims.
> >
> > We have here an interesting tug of war: was Witters a transcendental
> > philosopher
> > who claimed that our language games constituted the possibility for
> meaning
> > and
> > knowledge or was he a cultural anthropologist in the tradition of Geertz
> et
> > al?
> >
> >
> > Walter O.
> > MUN
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:
> >
> > > Walter asks
> > >
> > > > Would anyone know of a source on Wittgenstein who examines why W
> > believed
> > > that
> > > > meaning and knowledge are not possible independent of language
> games,
> > and
> > > what
> > > > W specifically meant by that claim?
> > >
> > > This may be a futile search, for that is something he did not
> believe;
> > > that is, there are no grounds for attributing such a belief to him.
> > >
> > > There's very little epistemology in Wittgenstein, unless one
> counts what
> > > he says about certainty, and claims to know such-and-such, in Über
> > > Gewissheit.
> > >
> > > Robert Paul
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> >
> >
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>
>
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