[Wittrs] Wittgenstein, Language, Thought and Mind

  • From: CJ <castalia@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:33:00 -0400

Reply to Sean

I cannot bring myself to go along with your account of Wittgenstein
here, when you say that the thing to remember is that Wittgenstein is
against a contrived inner/outer distinction and that W doesn't want
you to talk with too much inner as much as he does not you to talk with too much 
outer.

To me Wittgenstein is much more than being about proscriptions, even
thought he does say many such things, he is about showing us via his
mode of operation what the prescription is for our entrenchment in
outrageously in adequate tacit presuppositions.

To be truly against an "inner/outer " distinction, it is not enough to
simply lobby for more or less of one or the  other.  To be against
such a nonsensical distinction, one must realize the nonsense for what
it is...to take some action.....and that is to learn to speak in a way
that surpasses it and its obstacles.  To limit W to admonitions about
"too much" or "too little" does not do him justice, I'm afraid.
Happily rattling around inside a cage is not enough to make us free
even though we are free to rattle around.

What does Wittgenstein want from us?  To truly reject the "inner/
outer".  To truly reject the nonsense ingredient in the notions of
"experience", which I am astonished to still hear being bandied about
as if the word refers to anything. I thought we were done with that
seventeenth century mythology.  Of course, experience is what gets
into our"inner" from the "outer" isn't it. or it's how the "outer" is
presented to the "inner" and blah, blah, blah.  How sad.  How
pathetically sad to embark so much earnest and valiant discussion
based on such utter balderdash. Where can such a journey take us but
to endless sputtering.

I believe that to learn the lesson of Wittgenstein we must learn to
speak freely, free of the chains of nonsense which he has helped to
show us and by doing so ourselves continue to purge our speaking of
further nonsense such as that of the notion of  "experience"or
'thought"  or 'behavior" to name just a few forms of such nonsense.
When we haven't got a  frakking clue as to what we are talking about
when we employ those terms as foundation for our blah, blah as we
debate different sides of the blah, blah with each other through
eternity perhaps , anymore than folks haven't had a clue for the past
few hundreds years.

How can we do justice to Wittgenstein.  Perhaps it's the aphorism
about he Zen Master who comes up behind his disciple and tells him not
to turn around and informs that he is holding an egg over his
disciple's head.  And that if he agrees that he is holding  the egg
over his head, the Master will smash the egg on top of the disciple's
head.  And that if he denies that he is holding  the egg over his
head, the Master will smash the egg on top of the disciple's head.
And that if he says nothing, the Master will smash the egg on top of
the student's head.

Those of you who have heard the end of this story will know what we
must do in order to do what Master Wittgenstein wants to do to profit
and learn from his work.  And you know that either while the passivity
of "doing nothing" is not enough, either "accepting or denying" is
merely passivity of another kind and also not nearly enough.

And for those of you who don't know the end of the story, sorry, but I
can't resist withholding the disciple's optimal response for now.  .

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