[lit-ideas] w1&2
- From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:04:45 +0200
what is interesting and non trivial is relatively simple.
wittgenstein gave an overinflated idea of what a language is and does.
then with several tricks tried to re-prioritize the view that people have
thoughts, states, minds, etc, and get to his point that the "language" is
prior to something else.
wittgenstein was a confused behaviorist. in my humble view while tractatus
is wrong in interesting ways (see e.g. peter simons on this) the so-called
2nd wittgenstein is a waste of time, if not for historical reasons
On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 9:56 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> As a 'thought experiment', we might imagine the mason and his assistant
> working together while not talking at all. Let's say that they had a heated
> argument the previous evening over the assistant's share of the wages, and
> they are not talking to each other now, but the work still needs to be
> finished by the deadline. Since the tasks are fairly routine, and they are
> an old tandem, the assistant knows when the mason needs a brick and when a
> slab without him saying anything at all. This does not take anything away
> from their being representatives of human life-form, if that is what is
> meant, or of a masonry life-style. Still waiting for an interpretation of
> W.'s statement that says something meaningful and nontrivial about this.
> (Where is R.P. ?)
>
> O.K.
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 9:17 PM, palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> yes, though the man lw would refuse to allow any talk of necessary
>> and/or sufficient conditions, so if asked the question would be fudged by
>> the usual bluster
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 9:11 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> So, perhaps W. does not mean that language is a necessary condition
>>> for something being a form of life, but that something having a language is
>>> a sufficient condition for it being a form of life. (To give it a
>>> charitable interpretation, although it certainly sounds like he is saying
>>> that life is defined by language.) Well, computers can use quite a few
>>> linguistic expressions nowadays; quite a few more than 'brick' and 'slab,'
>>> as the matter of fact. My computer is even capable of sending ambiguous
>>> messages like: "The application is not responding; you can close the
>>> window, or continue to wait." Is it therefore a form of life ?
>>>
>>> To sum up, I don't think that there is any kind of necessary
>>> connection between forms of language use and forms of life.
>>>
>>> O.K.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 6:53 PM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> >"to imagine a language... is to imagine a form of life." is, in my
>>>> humble opinion, one of those solemn, semi-mystical pronouncements by W.
>>>> that do not stand to critical examination even of a superficial
>>>> sort. Rhododendrons don't have a language, yet are a form of life. On the
>>>> other hand, a mason and his assistant who have a very simplified and
>>>> specialized code of communication consisting of a few expressions like
>>>> 'brick', 'hammer' and the like do not thereby constitute a form of life
>>>> separate from wider human society. (For one thing, their work belongs to,
>>>> and makes sense only within, a wider network of economic relations.)>
>>>>
>>>> Unlike some commentators, I take "form of life" as a non-technical
>>>> expression, at least in Wittgenstein's own hands: while admitting W might
>>>> have been clearer and his compressed style can be gnomic, the expression
>>>> "to
>>>> imagine a language is to imagine a form of life" might be re-written as "to
>>>> conceive the sense of a language is to conceive of a form of life within
>>>> which it has that sense". It is a Kantian point:- that sense of what is
>>>> immediate in language depends on an assumed background that is not 'given'
>>>> by that immediate language but only against that background can immediate
>>>> language have the sense it has.
>>>>
>>>> Long ago I posted how a 'slab-brick' language, which might appear to
>>>> a language for performing tasks with 'named' objects, might turn out to be
>>>> a language of prayer or of honour to the memory of a deceased builder - how
>>>> a hidden background, not apparent from the immediate language used by
>>>> speakers, might entirely change the sense of that immediate language from
>>>> its sense in the background we assumed. For Wittgenstein this kind of
>>>> background - the background we might check by making a 'surveyable
>>>> representation' - is indispensable to the sense of any kind of language;
>>>> and it is a background that can be seen as linked to a specific "form of
>>>> life".
>>>>
>>>> As flowers do not have language in W's sense, it is irrelevant that
>>>> they are a "form of life": that they are a "form of life" (without
>>>> language) neither refutes nor proves W's contention about how the sense of
>>>> language correlates with the "form of life" within which it is used.
>>>>
>>>> Nor is W suggesting the builders have a "form of life" distinct from
>>>> other humans: on the contrary, their slab language makes sense to other
>>>> humans because humans share a "form of life" within which referring to
>>>> objects to perform tasks makes sense across widely different cultures and
>>>> between widely different occupations.
>>>>
>>>> As far as the above goes, it seems to me W's Kantian point is on the
>>>> right lines and is far from merely mystical. The key (as always with W) is
>>>> that W also thinks there are "limits of language" such that we cannot
>>>> express in language the conditions by which language has sense and we can
>>>> only show them - but we show them only by assuming a "form of life "
>>>> within which language has the sense it has. It is this doctrine of
>>>> showing that is perhaps 'the mystical'.
>>>>
>>>> Dnl
>>>> ldn
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sunday, 15 June 2014, 16:58, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "to imagine a language means is to imagine a form of life." is, in
>>>> my humble opinion, one of those solemn, semi-mystical pronouncements by W.
>>>> that do not stand to critical examination even of a superficial
>>>> sort. Rhododendrons don't have a language, yet are a form of life. On the
>>>> other hand, a mason and his assistant who have a very simplified and
>>>> specialized code of communication consisting of a few expressions like
>>>> 'brick', 'hammer' and the like do not thereby constitute a form of life
>>>> separate from wider human society. (For one thing, their work belongs to,
>>>> and makes sense only within, a wider network of economic relations.)
>>>>
>>>> O.K.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Donal McEvoy <
>>>> donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>
>>>
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