[lit-ideas] Re: testing waters
- From: karltrogge@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:23:57 +0200
On 26-May-09, at 3:34 AM, Richard Henninge wrote:
The end of the Tractatus (6.53, 6.54 & 7), with this note: that
Wittgenstein's verb "clarify" (German "erlaütern"), unusually
intransitive in this usage, has the same etymology as the first
syllable in his first name, "LUDwig," with a basic meaning of
"washed, cleaned" and thus "purified, brilliant," like cleaning
diatoms, to reveal their structure, by removing all the soft living
matter obscuring them, concealing them.
(You will please excuse the extreme tardiness of this comment which
has for too long been saved as a draft awaiting a time when I could
'wash and clean' it to make it fit for posting. I would not be sending
it - so late - at all, except that the progression of discussion for
which I was hoping has not occurred. Here is a little prod.)
Richard Henninge's poetical summation of the end of Wittgenstein's
TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS provides a fitting point from which to
jump to his (that is, Wittgenstein's not Henninge's) next published
work PHILOSOPHISCHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN (Philosophical Investigations).
For, 'purified and brilliant' as the epigrams in TRACTATUS LOGICO-
PHILOSOPHICUS are, is not something rather important lost when one
'removes all the soft living matter' from a diatom, particularly if
one is interested 'bio-logically' in the diatom - in other words (and
here I will betray my hand), as a 'form of life'?
I would think that Wittgenstein was aware of this and thus moved on in
the PHILOSOPHISCHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN to argue against "die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache" (the bewitchment
of our intelligence by means of language - remark 109).
"Wir erkennen, daß, was wir »Satz«, »Sprache«, nennen, nicht die
formelle Einheit ist, die ich mir vorstellte, sondern die Familie mehr
oder weniger miteinander verwandter Gebilde. -Was aber wird nun aus
der Logik? Ihre Strenge scheint hier aus dem Leim zu gehen. -
Verschwindet sie damit aber nicht ganz? - Denn wie kann die Logik ihre
Strenge verlieren? Natürlich nicht dadurch, daß man ihr etwas von
ihrer Strenge abhandelt. - Das Vorurteil der Kristallreinheit kann nur
so beseitigt werden, daß wir unsere ganze Betrachtung drehen. (Man
könnte sagen: Die Betrachtung muß gedreht werden, aber um unser
eigentliches Bedürfnis als Angelpunkt.)"
In G.E.M Anscombe's English (remark 108): "We see what we call
'sentence' and 'language' has not the formal unity that I imagined,
but is a family of structures more or less related to one another.--
But what becomes of logic now? It's rigour seems to be giving way
here.--But in that case doesn't logic altogether disappear?--For how
can it lose its rigour? Of course not by our bargaining any of its
rigour out of it.--The PRECONCEIVED IDEA of crystalline purity can
only be removed by turning our whole examination round. (One might
say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but
about the fixed point of our real need.)"
The diatoms' structure does not disappear, but if our 'need' is 'bio-
logical' (that is, in the soft living matter obscuring it) it ceases
to be the focus of our concern, and we rotate the axis of our
examination. The result of our attempt at exploration of language
along this axis but 'from the other side'?
"Die Sprache ist ein Labyrinth von Wegen. Du kommst von einer Seite
und kennst dich aus. Du kommst von eine andern zur selben Stelle, und
kennst dich nicht mehr aus."
"Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from ONE side and know
your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no
longer know your way about." (Anscombe again, remark 203)
(This is lengthy for an e-mail posting - at least I for one cannot
read electronic text with the same closeness as I can read a printed
page - and other matters are pressing so I will end here. I hope that
I will find time to participate in any discussion which may arise.)
Karl Trogge,
'auf der Englische Planke' in northern Germany
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