[Wittrs] Re: The Vexing Question (response to Stuart)
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:46:46 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <kirby.urner@...> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 6:14 PM, SWM <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
>
> > You're not suggesting I am saying that one needs a referent for a word to
> > be meaninful right? I think it's pretty clear I am talking about words used
> > as referring words. If the word is used to refer then the absence of a
> > referent would certainly remove its meaning (other than some other kind of
> > meaning, of course).
> >
>
> I reject nominalism as an adequate model of anything (except maybe
> Python) so won't respond to these remarks directly. I simply refuse
> to think in those terms.
>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >
> > No one denies it. I am saying that that is fine as poetry, bad as
> > philosophy because it's metaphysical and metaphysics (theorizing about) is
> > bad philosophy. But, of course, we can do metaphysics in other ways
> > including by poetry. But then the point is not to make an argument, propose
> > and support a theory, etc., etc.
> >
>
> No one says metaphysics is by definition bad philosophy except the
> silly logical positivists who never understood Wittgenstein in any
> way, shape or form. The Tractatus itself was named after Spinoza's
> work, Schopenhauer also respected. To dismiss this as "mere poetry"
> is an 1800s maneuver, no longer acceptable.
>
I say it. Indeed I said it! But what I actually referred to was "metaphysics
(theorizing about)". I did not say one cannot produce useful insights of a
metaphysical sort in other ways, say by poetry, though! I don't know what you
mean by "mere poetry". Maybe some poetry is "mere poetry" but poetry that opens
us to new and insightful ways of seeing is hardly "mere" anything, at least not
on my view.
> >
> > Wittgenstein himself abandoned the Tractatus way of doing philosophical
> > business and is on record as saying it contained "grave errors". Are we not
> > to take him at his word, especially in the face of his later writings which
> > provide lots of corroborative evidence?
> >
>
> Yes, he's lucky to have had a 2nd chance, no one denies this.
>
> << trim >>
>
> > I don't see Cayuse as a Tractarian but, rather, as someone who cherry picks
> > the Tractatus for his mystical picture (though I'm not sure Cayuse would
> > agree that it is mystical). Another point: He has referenced Buddhism in
> > the past though I'll admit it's not clear which strain. If Cayuse is in the
> > Zen tradition then he would be closer, I think, to the later PI
> > Wittgenstein than to the formalistic metaphysics of the Tractatus.
> >
>
> Yeah, fine to link Tractatus to other esoterica, including in Buddhist
> traditions, it's done all the time all over the Internet (also in
> brick and mortar libraries). The links are pretty obvious.
Anyone can do anything. But that doesn't mean that, by just doing it, they have
got it right. That's the point of discussing these things isn't it?
SWM
> 'Wittgenstein and Buddhism' as already a book title when I was at
> Princeton in the 1970s. Ditto the PI, which I link to gestalt
> psychology, but that's just a stone's throw from zen.
>
> Kirby
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