[Wittrs] Re: New Group-Purpose Page
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:53:08 -0700 (PDT)
(replying to Josh)
... here is the problem that I am having. If we have a Wittgenstein discussion
group, that's all we have. I didn't want to have just that. I wanted to have a
discussion group that avoided certain pitfalls in discourse and that,
accordingly, could have a higher-discussion potential for any ideas that it
considered. My sense was that a Wittgenstein-learned and appreciative person
would be more cognizant of those pitfalls. So I had to justify why a discussion
group would use Wittgenstein as a screen as opposed to, say, Einstein. Half of
the justification was that Wittgenstein offers difficult ideas (and surely
difficult to read ideas), which is true of many thinkers. The other half was
that what one is supposed to learn from Wittgenstein -- grammar, language
games, etc. -- is directly relevant to discourse. A mind that
learns Wittgenstein really trains itself to become better in some sense at
understanding assertions.
Also, in this respect, I had to look at Wittgenstein's thought as a
progression. So many of the discussion groups have people who discuss under the
rubric of analysis, definitions, proof, debate and so forth. To the extent
that W's later thought represents a transcendence of this, it sort of takes the
way we discuss into a different realm. Or perhaps using different "tools" or
something. This gets to why I see the world in a post-Wittgensteinian framework
rather than a post-modern one. And why I wanted to leave the Analytic list. And
when I look at my own life, I, too, see a similar sort of progression: being
foolishly existentialist at first, then going hard core logical positivist,
then arriving home at latter-day Wittgenstein. So many people, I think, make a
journey like this.
So that is the reason for the elitist sounding group message. However, several
things should be noted. First, it's only a group "statement of purpose." It's
just an advertisement. It is common for groups and organizations to have such
mantra-sounding things. Secondly, one surely recognizes that members of any
group have a spectrum of beliefs. Some might not agree that Wittgenstein leads
to better discourse. Others might not really know. (Maybe personality factors
are the real determinants here -- but can you have a group centered around such
a thing?). Lastly, people join for various reasons; not all are religious
about group agendas.
So I think there is a logic to having qualifications for membership that are
somewhat different from the group organizers' vision of the good life. Besides,
if it is any matter, I didn't send out links to the page in the emails I've
been sending all day.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Redesigned Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanwilsonorg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seanwilsonorg
New Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
WEB VIEW: http://tinyurl.com/ku7ga4
TODAY: http://alturl.com/whcf
3 DAYS: http://alturl.com/d9vz
1 WEEK: http://alturl.com/yeza
GOOGLE: http://groups.google.com/group/Wittrs
YAHOO: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/
FREELIST: //www.freelists.org/archive/wittrs/09-2009
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