[Wittrs] Re: Russell or Wittgenstein?
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:37:14 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, brendan downs <wittrs@...> wrote:
>
>
> Why refute your own work???
Because he was a young punk when he wrote the early version,
and he matured and realized his errors, not to mention the fads
and fashions of the times had changed.
Inspired by some of the recent discussions here, and by some of
the (re)reading I've been doing in any case, I'm starting to
establish a little more of my own feel for just how TLP differs
from PI, at least in and around the issues I find most interesting.
And, apparently a rarity so far on this forum, I try to put it into
the perspective of what other work was going on in the fields of
philosophy, science, and even general culture, at the same time.
I'm now playing with the idea that, to a first approximation, what
Wittgenstein did was not so much refute his earlier work, as invert
it. Is that a refutation? Look at the Hubble telescope, someone
in the original figuring inverted a couple of washers and fittings,
screwing it up. Afterwards, they had to fix it by creating
offsetting errors in other areas. Did they "refute" the earlier
version?
(I'm not really in love with the little Hubble metaphor above
but it's so cute anyway I don't want to discard it, so what,
the heck, if it doesn't do anything for you ask Sean
for a refund!)
>He uses Augstines system of language and he turns ostensive definitions into
>ostensive training. now this implicty implied in the act of pointing is
>teaching, so ostensive definitions into ostensive definitions training is
>sononyomous with each other. like "slab" and "bring me a slab".
I think if you read any decent commentary on Wittgenstein, it will
help explain how he often starts with some contrary opinion, like
Augustine's associational/ostensive learning, just in order to more
clearly depart from it. LW has to be read slowly and carefully,
and it really helps to discuss it with others, and to read some
of the secondary literature on it. Of course there remain huge
disagreements even there on what it all means, not to mention that
whatever it meant, it still might be right, or wrong, or neither.
Josh
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