[Wittrs] Re: The Vexing Question (response to Stuart)
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 17:21:14 -0700
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 3:48 PM, SWM <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:
<< trim >>
> Of course my comments regarding your claim that "consciousness" means "the
> all", which you have variously defined for us as a referentless referent, a
> word without grammar, etc., of course is contra your claim. But since my
> reference in what you cite above was to a claim about consciousness being
> described as a property of some matter or physical event(s) and THAT is a
> position some hold, it cannot have been a "strawman" (since we both agree
> some hold it).
>
Just jumping in here, we know from Wittgenstein that "having a
referent" was never a prerequisite for having meaning, so those
pitching a nominalist tent are simply doing extra work that post
linguistic turn philosophers have mostly stopped doing. We sleep
outdoors, under the stars, don't need that extra baggage or
scaffolding, legacy thinking from a darker age.
> My arguments against your position have been different, of course, to wit,
> that it makes no sense to argue, as you do, that "consciousness" means "the
> all" or something Nagel calls the "what it is like to be (fill in whatever
> you please)", impute it wrongly to me and then declare it unintelligible
> because it lacks a referent and a grammar. Making such a claim says NOTHING
> about my position SINCE I DON'T USE "CONSCIOUSNESS" THAT WAY AND HAVE NOTED
> THAT IF ANYONE DOES AND MEANS TO DO SO IN ANY LOGICALLY INTELLIGIBLE WAY THEN
> THEY WOULD BE WRONG TO DO SO.
>
It's quite standard for a philosophy to have an all-that-is moniker
such as Being, although this fades over into theology pretty quickly
ala Buber and Tillich.
In the case of the Tractatus, it's essential to have an appreciation
for the radical solipsist's predicament, is is *not* a soft skepticism
about "other minds" so much as a hard certainty that *this* (aka the
visual room and its contents) is unique "from this angle" (and how
does one point to the incomparable again?).
The Tractatus is less vested in the word "Being" than in "world" as
all that is the case, including currently imagined false propositions
about it (they're part of the world too i.e. it may not be true that
A, yet it's true that A is believed by B to be true).
The Tractatus also has a "self" concepts and works to extract it from
the flow of time, as <i>sub speci aeterni</i>.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sub_specie_aeterni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus_(6.5)
http://tinyurl.com/y8zpaa8 (more on continuity of early and late LW thinking)
Cayuse comes across as a mystic more after the fashion of the early
Wittgenstein, whereas the later Wittgenstein is saying much the same
thing (that the ethical dimension is where to achieve the necessary
insights), but by then Wittgenstein had become far more sophisticated
in his approach, didn't need the crutch of a propositional calculus,
soon to be rendered obsolete anyway, but the computer languages of
today.
Here's a passage from the Tractatus that could just as well be about
Philosophical Investigations:
"""
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy
is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work
consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in
'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of
propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and
indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp
boundaries.
"""
> Again, though we have argued back and forth here for quite some time, I am
> still not clear on what case you are actually aiming to make or what your
> dispute is with anything I've actually said.
>
> If you want to try to add something that will clarify this, I'll be glad to
> continue. Otherwise we should just follow Sean's earlier advice, don't you
> think?
>
I like that we have "Tractarians" among us, even though I'm pretty
strongly allied with the later Wittgenstein against the former. Both
are useful in zen practice or whatever.
Neither have anything to do with getting something called
"consciousness" to run on a heap of broken Intel chips ala the Hawkins
scifi (that's just comic book stuff).
Kirby
> SWM
>
>
> For all your Wittrs needs: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
>
>
>
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