[lit-ideas] Re: There is no such thing as _a_ logico-philosophicus

  • From: "Richard Henninge" <RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:13:11 +0100

Why? 

Because "logico-philosophicus" is an adjective. This is something that can be 
learned. And when a judge repeats what to you may seem to lack explanatory 
power, it may be because you, like others on a jury, don't quite grasp how 
adjectives and adverbs and nouns work in the language. "An <adjective> <noun> 
is a <noun> that is <adjective>." "A big tree is a tree that is big." "A 
reasonable doubt is a doubt that is reasonable." A logical-philosophical 
treatise is a treatise that is logical-philosophical, not a treatise on 
"philosophical logic," as Donal erroneously thinks ("like the Tractatus, PI is 
a book on ‘philosophical logic’"--from "Wittgenstein's Child I"). Before 
letting Donal go much further in his frustrated attempt to get a hearing from 
the "Wittgensteinians" on the list for his theory of the one true way to 
understand Wittgenstein, I thought it necessary to point out some of what the 
German speakers would call his "Wissenslücken" (gaps [or holes] in the 
knowledge of something), here, of Wittgenstein, by quoting Wittgenstein's 
comment to Ogden: "There is no such thing as philosophic logic"; hence, he 
would scarcely have written, as Donal maintains, not just one, but two books on 
the subject. Granted, Donal gives himself a lot of leeway when it comes to 
attributing errors to himself:
  But before we even _go there_, it might be useful for someone to clarify the 
supposed distinction between "philosophic logic" and the "logico-philosophicus" 
in the title of the _Tractatus_. Dusted down from its latin tags, 
"logico-philosophicus" would not seem a million miles from [my emphases--RH] 
"philosophic logic". 
On the other hand, in ". . . she truly believed she had no real choice but to 
do so" the word "truly" is an adverb modifying the verb "believe" and therefore 
has nothing to do, pace Donal, with the objective truth of what she believes, 
and that is why the jury should only be concerned with how truly she believed 
it, not how true that which she believed actually was.

I say "pace Donal" because I know his overbearing will to be right will 
probably come back to deny, rebut or otherwise sconce my identification of this 
flaw in his thinking--". . . it might be possible on one reading of "she truly 
believed she had no real choice" to convict - because, while she subjectively 
believed or felt she had no real choice, objectively she had a choice and so 
her belief was not a "truly believed"--and I could probably hold my breath as 
long as it takes for him to do so. 

Richard Henninge
University of Mainz






Donal
Not holding his breath for an explanation of the difference between 
'philosophical logic' and a 'logico-philosophicus'

London

*As to claims like "A reasonable doubt is a doubt that is reasonable", when 
considered for their lack of explanatory power, Popper is inclined to blame the 
baneful influence of certain analytic philosophers: see Realism and the Aim of 
Science. 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Donal McEvoy 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 2:27 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Jurisprudence: ordinary language philosophy in action 
today?



  As Wittgenstein might now say - "Do you see? Do you see what is shown here?" 



  But of course a better jurisprudence is a Popperian one which accounts for 
all this in terms of specific problems and their possible solutions.*





  Donal
  Not holding his breath for an explanation of the difference between 
'philosophical logic' and a 'logico-philosophicus'

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