[lit-ideas] le teste di cazzo cazzeggiano, una verita' analitica piu' di qualunque analisi si possa far venire prodotta
- From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 14:14:18 +0000
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Subject: [lit-ideas] How Pirots Karulize Elatically: Some Simpler Ways
In a message dated 3/12/2015 5:08:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
What are we to make of this? Does it validate the use of "conceptual" by
certain philosophers? Or should we perhaps apply Wittgenstein's therapy a la
"My aim is: to teach you by going from a piece of disguised nonsense to
something that is patent nonsense"*?
Well, to answer Witters's question: part of _his_ problem is that he didn't
have a clear idea of nonsense (this he inherited from Frege, who didn't have a
clear idea of sense -- so he wasn't just just himself to blame).
Was Witters's nonsense disguised or patent?
As McEvoy well recalled, Witters would tell his students:
My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something
that is patent nonsense. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,
Para. 464. (1953).
While appointed a professor of philosophy at Cambridge, where the official
lingo is some sort of English, Witters felt his English was not good enough for
Cambridge (or "Cantab.", as he preferred -- he was amused that Latin was used
in documents), so he preferred to lecture his English students in German. What
he said was:
"Was ich lehren will, ist: von einem nicht offenkundigen Unsinn zu einem
offenkundigen überzugehen."
Not that he uses 'learn'. In "Wind in the Willows", this use of 'learn' to mean
'teach' is deemed 'vulgar'.
"Learn, learn, learn"
"You mean 'teach'".
Witters had an advantage over Frege, which he never made much of. He had been
raised in one of the most cultivated cities in Europe: lovely Vienna.
And while Witters's nonsense is patent (rather than disguised), he didn't know
what 'nonsense' was. It was a member of the Vienna Circle who did: Rudolf
Carnap.
Carnap was enlightened in the idea of nonsense by reading Martin Heidegger,
who had said that "The Nothing itself noths". This was an endless cause of
mirth among the members of the Vienna Circle. But Carnap thought he could do
better. "We should learn this Heidegger what nonsense is all about".
Then Carnap famously uttered:
Pirots karulize elatically.
"Beat THAT!", he added with Germanic sarcasm and strenght. The sad thing is
Grice did beat THAT.
In "How Pirots Karulize Elatically: Some Simpler Ways", which Grice delivered
at some university or other.
Carnap (1943) had borrowed the expression from Russell (who had to bear with
Witters's nonsense almost daily) but never cared to return.
"A pirot", Grice writes,
"can be said to potch of some obble x"
and potch it
"as fang or feng;"
The pirot may be said
"also to cotch of x, or some obble o, as fang or feng;"
Then Grice adds,
But then a pirot may also be said
"to cotch of one obble o and ANOTHER obble o'
as being fid to one another."
The "strict code-language" turns patent nonsense into implicated sense.
Pirots inhabit a world of obbles.
And their goal, designed by the Pirot-Maker is for continued operancy --
"Each pirot strives for its survival, what to do to avoid becoming an
ex-pirot".
We so far have a pirot who, at most,
-- will potch.
"To potch", Grice writes, "is something like to perceive".
A pirot can further
-- cotch.
Where "to cotch", Grice notes, is
"something like to think."
"Feng and fang are possible descriptions, much like our adjectives."
Thus, the pirot can
"cotch of one obble o and another obble o' as being fid to one another."
-- where "'fid' is
a possible
relation
between obbles."
So there:
So back to Witters:
"What are we to make of this [Dylan's use of 'concept'? Does it validate the
use of "conceptual" by certain philosophers? Or should we perhaps apply
Wittgenstein's therapy a la "My aim is: to teach you by going from a piece of
disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense"*?
"Was ich lehren will, ist: von einem nicht offenkundigen Unsinn zu einem
offenkundigen überzugehen."
Witters perhaps had a problem with 'learn', or 'teach'. It has been said that
'teach' (i.e. Witters's 'lehren') is factive.
The student was taught at school at the date of the Battle of Waterloo was June
18, 1815.
MOTHER: What did you learn at school today?
STUDENT: That the battle of Waterloo was fought on June 18, 1815. The teacher
taught me that.
There is misteaching and mislearning, but Witters does not use the prefixes.
His aim is to teach something that is feasible. If his goal is accomplished then
G. E. M. Anscombe
-- surely Witters's best student --
will have learned "von eneim nicht offenkundigen Unsinn zu einem offenkundigen
ueberzugehen."
What perhaps Anscombe never learned is that she should have just left it as it
was: in Witters's native language. Because there's something untranslatable to
"Unsinn" which is what Witters was only interested in.
The 'offenkundigen' is the patent; the 'nicht offenkundigen' is the disguised.
But note that Witters uses, like Heidegger, 'nicht': from the latent to the
patent, or from the covert to the overt.
Then Plumpton (as friends called F. R. Ramsey) heard of this, and uttered, in
contempt:
"Is that what he [Witters] said?", he asked one of Witters's students.
"I'm afraid it is, sir."
"Well, there you have. But don't be misled. Whatever he aims to teach you,
recall you must take seriously his own claim that what he is teachins is,
merely, nonsense, and do not follow him in pretending that it is
*important* nonsense!"
"No, sir, I won't."
The student went on to write the biggest refutation of Witters ever!
Cheers,
Speranza
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