[lit-ideas] Re: Wittgenstein's Punch Line

  • From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 08:20:57 -0330

I thought the following was funny: something like: "We're not crazy, we're just
doing philosophy."

And "Moore knows nothing!", replying to Moore's hand-waving as part of his proof
of an external world (and to other stuff).

Cheers, Walter


Quoting Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>:

> "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to
> enjoy ourselves."
> 
> 
> Is a response to Kierkegaard, whom W. supposedly appreciated. I haven't got
> the exact quote from K. at hand, but in the context of Kierkegaard's weird
> existentialist Christianity, 'why we are here' is obviously meant to to mean
> (a Gricean expression ?) 'why we are here in the world.' 
> 
> W: Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century.
> Kierkegaard was a saint.
> 
> Was this meant as a humorous or perhaps ironic remark ? Who would know,
> especially if not armed by a Gricean analysis of implicature and
> communicative intentions ? :)
> 
> O.K.
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, February 20, 2014 12:19 PM, "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx"
> <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>  
> 
> 
> In a message dated 2/19/2014 3:49:20  A.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
> donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes in Re:  Wittgenstein's Humour
> while there is nothing playful about the Tractatus,  there is something 
> playful (or possibly playful) in aspects of Investigations.  
> 
> However, we seem to have a bit of a punch line:
> 
> "My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally 
> recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on 
> them,  over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has 
> climbed up  on it.) (6.54)"
> 
> R. Paul quotes from N. Malcolm -- and thanks for O. K. for his examples,  
> which can be seen as punch lines by Witters to implicated pieces of  
> philosophical reasoning --:
> 
> "A curious thing, which I observed innumerable times, was that when  
> Wittgenstein invented an example during his lectures in order to illustrate
> a  
> point, he himself would grin at the absurdity of what he had imagined. But
> if  
> any member of the class were to chuckle, his expression would change to 
> severity  and he would exclaim in reproof, ‘No, no; I’m serious!’"
> 
> McEvoy elsewhere refers to 'authorial intent', which is a keyword, since,  
> with Beardsley, and Grice, I would not count a joke as an implicature.  
> Implicature and thus most 'authorial intents' are reason-based, not
> cause-based, 
> and one does not need a _reason_ to be amused; only a cause.
> 
> Note the Moore-type ("It is raining, but I don't believe it") in Malcolm's  
> punchline:
> 
> "No, no [Nanette]; I'm serious" 
> 
> YET I grin.
> 
> Or not.
> 
> C. Bruce referred to a 'hint of a smile', which is yet not quite a  
> Cheshire-cat sort of grin, NOR a more or less sonorous chuckle.
> 
> Or not.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Speranza
> 
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