[lit-ideas] Re: "The Life and Death of Wittgenstein"
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 14:45:48 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
> donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
> writes:
> There is a process between an entity being alive and
> it being dead which
> we call "dying" - insofar as "death" refers to this
> process P2 is false
> again: for clearly people do experience, indeed most
> consciously sometimes, the
> process of dying.
<snip>
> While we loosely can say, "He is experiencing death", in
> fact he is not. He
> is experiencing the last moments of his life.
That is to say, he is experiencing "death" qua process i.e. experiencing not
the state of being dead but of dying. In this sense, we can experience death.
It is in this sense we can say that "at [the v. point of] his death he cried
out", and don't generally expect to have to thank a TLP-injecting smartarse for
objecting, "No, that would have to been - by definition - a cry before [the v.
point of] his death." {And this is aside from the point that the point between
life and death may not be always determinate any more than the point when HAL
in 2001 was no longer functioning - it may be a gradual transition from life to
death where the point of "passing" is one without clear criteria}.
In the other sense, where
">Death is
> defined as
> non-experience",
the assertion that we cannot experience death amounts to a tautology.
My post drew these distinctions afair; and my point was that the tautological
truth is not philosophically profound (it is not even metaphysically a "must"
since it is conceivable that there are *afterlife experiences* [AJ Ayer thought
he had one, funnily enough] - unless, by definition, we stipulate that they
cannot therefore be "experiences" since these are confined to the living).
Since you cannot "refute" a tautology or definitional assertion, it is doubtful
that I thought I was refuting W as such - merely attacking whether anything
worthwhile was being said. How can you even attempt to refute a man more taken
with Carmen Miranda than Judy Garland?
That W had a different aim in making these somewhat crytic statements, than
merely offering an empty tautology, is of course left open - and indeed is
probable. But it is also open to think this aim has not been clearly or well-
achieved.
Donal
Ay Ay Ay I like you v much
In case anyone doubted
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